


a universe of beaches

by orphan_account



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, F/F, Nerds in Love, Swan Queen Supernova
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-16
Updated: 2016-12-16
Packaged: 2018-09-06 21:38:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8770291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: The farm girl—Emma, and of course her name was Emma, and it had never sounded so beautiful to Regina than in that moment—stood on shaky legs, came closer until Regina could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the flush of exertion in her cheeks and the way she had never looked so beautiful than in that moment. How had she been so blind?


  “Can you...sorry, I couldn’t really hear, over there, and I thought I heard you say—”


  “Emma,” Regina said again.


  The farm girl let out a little choking noise, lifted her hand as if to touch Regina and then ran it through her own hair instead. “You know my name,” she said.


  “Yes, Emma, I—”

“You know my name."
a classic tale of true love and high adventure, except now it's also gay. [princess bride au]





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mammothluv](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mammothluv/gifts).



> thank you so much to the amazing mods for all of your hard work in putting this event together! i can't wait to see all the stories this fandom has to tell. thank you also to my beta, sweets, for your help and support, and to mammothluv for making the gorgeous art to go along with this! (check it out [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8803984/)!)
> 
> robin is technically in here but is never named, so feel free to imagine whoever you wish as the prince. warning for canon-typical violence throughout; other content warnings are at the beginning of chapters. also i borrowed some lines from the book in one section so those do not belong to me. finally, if you haven't read/watched the princess bride, please know that despite a few alarming developments there is a happy ending!!
> 
> i hope you enjoy!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for child abuse (cora's in here a lot), and mention of disordered eating.

 

 

 

_“Do you love me, Westley? Is that it?”_

_He couldn’t believe it. “Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.”_

William Goldman, The Princess Bride

 

 

 

Henry (the Senior, as his grandson likes to call him when he’s feeling particularly cheeky) gets the call on a Tuesday morning. “The kid’s sick,” his daughter-in-law says, “and we both have to go to work today. Do you think—could you come over, maybe? Just...read him a story or something, I don’t know. We’re kind of desperate.”

 

He smiles. “Of course. Anything for Henry, you know that.”

 

“Thank you.” He can hear the sigh of relief on the other end of the line just before she hangs up. He hasn’t gotten to see his grandson so often, lately, but the boy’s a force to be reckoned with, and he doesn’t envy his daughter and her wife trying to keep Henry entertained while he’s cooped up inside.

 

“Abuelo!” Henry shouts when he enters the room, surging up as if to hug him before seeming to think better of it. “You’re here!”

 

“Sí, mijo,” he says, fond. “I heard you were sick.”

 

“Not really.” Henry folds his arms. His cheeks are flushed, and there’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead.

 

“I see,” his grandfather says. “Well, how about I tell you a story, and we’ll see how you feel then.”

 

“What’s the story about?”

 

“Oh, a bit of everything, you know. Kidnapping, magic, mystery...true love…”

 

“Hold on,” Henry says, brow furrowed. “It’s a love story?”

 

“Well,” says Henry (the Senior), who was once a child himself and remembers enough to know that this is not a desirable quality in one’s stories. “Just a little bit.”

 

“Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” Henry asks, grinning, and he leans back and gestures toward the bed in welcome.

 

-

 

“The year Regina was born,” Henry Sr. begins, “the most beautiful woman in the world was a princess named Tamara. Lords and ladies and all the other royals flocked from every corner of her kingdom to see her for themselves. She was the object of awe and jealousy throughout the land for many years, until one day someone was rude to her. You see, it turned out that Tamara was as quick-witted as she was radiant, but of course this was a time when ladies were expected to be demure rather than funny. Tamara was pronounced a sharp-tongued villain, and she faded out of the public consciousness, never to be heard from again.

 

When Regina turned ten, the most beautiful woman in the world was Guinevere, a queen this time. She was kind and brave and fair, and she was always surrounded by the flowers her adoring subjects sent. But soon an evil man grew jealous of the fondness her people bore her, and he poisoned the flowers until she grew too sickly to rule and she, too, disappeared.

 

(Later, it would be discovered that Guinevere had run off with the head of the palace guard, with whom she was very much in love, and had recovered her health in a small cottage in the hills, surrounded by her favorite flowers. Tamara, it was said, had found happiness with an equally sharp-witted princess from a neighboring kingdom, and the two spent their days trading friendly barbs and enjoying their newfound obscurity.)

 

At eighteen, Regina knew nothing of this, and indeed would not have concerned herself with it if she had. According to her mother’s journal, however, in which Cora carefully kept track of the rankings, she was still in the low thirties. Her potential would have brought her up to twenty-five, except that she spent so much time in the fields that she was constantly disheveled, no matter how often she was gently reminded that _ladies did not devote themselves to such pursuits, darling_. Regina’s priorities were, in order of importance: Rocinante, making sure the farm girl was taking adequate care of Rocinante, and completing her chores.

 

It was a good thing the farm girl’s care of Rocinante was second on her list, too, because she had to supervise the farm girl a _lot_ . The farm girl had come to work for their family a couple years ago. She was blonde, and the muscles in her arms were always rippling in the sun (not that Regina was _looking_ at them, obviously, and it made sense that the farm girl’s muscles would be so well defined, because of all the manual labor she did.) She seemed to be constantly leaning against fence posts or lounging under trees while Regina rode, as if their breaks had just naturally coincided, and Regina sometimes caught her tracking Rocinante’s motions with a wistful smile, the slightest hint of want on her face.

 

She probably wanted to ride away. Regina could understand.

 

Anyway, she was pretty sure the farm girl wasn’t all that smart, because every time she’d give her an order the farm girl would respond with the exact same phrase. “Prepare Rocinante’s tack for me this afternoon, farm girl.” “As you wish.” “Stop giving him carrots, farm girl, he likes them better from me.” “As you wish.” “You can respond differently if you want to, farm girl.” “As you wish.”

 

It was infuriating, honestly. And it was a shame, because the farm girl had these wonderfully expressive eyes and it would have been nice for Regina to have someone her age to talk to besides the _boys_.

 

(The _boys_. The silly, boring, ridiculously determined boys. No matter how much Regina tried to avoid them, they followed her everywhere in town, fidgeting before tentatively asking her what she thought of the weather. Once a particularly awful one had told her she was a stuck-up, and the farm girl had seen her holding back tears in the stables. The next time she’d seen him, he’d avoided her gaze, and there’d been a faint shadow around his left eye.)

 

Mother’s expression was even sharper when Regina was talking to the farm girl than when she talked to the boys, though. Maybe it was for the best.

 

-

 

By the time summer came around, Regina’s potential had catapulted her into the low twenties, and people had begun to take note. The boys were unavoidable, now, and sometimes the local farmers would stare at her a little too long before her mother cleared her throat, gaze pointed. At Cora’s urging, she began to brush her hair, and then bathe twice a day rather than once.

 

The change was quick, when it came. News spread of her beauty. There was less time to ride and more to poke and prod at her one bony elbow or the stubborn curls above her right ear. The farm girl, when Regina saw her (which was rarer and rarer, a glimpse of blonde hair disappearing into the stables or a flash of vaguely longing eyes through the window), looked tired. Worn down. The days when Regina was allowed to fetch bread from town were long gone ( _Think of your reputation, Regina darling, think of those town boys, think of our family, think, think_.) Everything was a purpose now, a goal. Mounting ever higher on a list that didn’t even exist in reality.

 

In her dreams, she tore it up, over and over.

 

-

 

She’d climbed to the high teens when the Count visited. Still just a girl, traces of baby fat hovering along her cheekbones, but lovely, lovely. Everyone said it and so it must have been true. The Count was visiting their farm and so it must have been true, because why else would the _Count_ visit a tiny home in the middle of nowhere?

 

It was a mild autumn day. They were in the kitchen, eating breakfast. (Fruit and nothing else, _you have to watch your figure now, Regina_ , sharp eyes watching her, cutting at the ache in her stomach until she forced herself to forget she’d ever been hungry in the first place. Sometimes she thought about the other girls on the list, wondered if they’d had this too. If it had been worth it, for them.)

 

It was her father who noticed first. “That’s a rich man’s carriage,” he said, inching closer to the window, and then— “That’s the _Count_ ’s carriage.”

 

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Cora said, but she angled herself to follow his gaze all the same. She was winning today, three to one after their spat over Regina’s plate that morning, but then she was always winning, and her husband’s point was really only because she hadn’t cared to argue any further. Regina didn’t know why she bothered to keep score, really. Mother was always going to win by the end of the day.

 

They watched the carriage approach for a few moments. “Why would the Count come to our town?” Regina wondered out loud, and neither of them answered her. It was incomprehensible.

 

Unless. Cora turned to look at her, look her over, and then her expression shifted, just a slight movement of an eyebrow and a firming of the chin, and Regina caught a hint of understanding. “Go change, darling,” Cora said. “The blue dress, I think. Just in case.”

 

“Yes, Mother,” Regina said quietly.

 

By the time she came back downstairs, it was clear the carriage was heading toward the house, and the dread twisting behind her sternum had built until she thought it might crack.

 

“We should go outside,” her father said.

 

“Yes,” said Cora, and she pinched Regina’s cheeks once, hard, and whispered, “don’t forget to smile.”

 

And Regina smiled. Smiled until that felt like cracking too, but the other kind of cracking, shattering instead of splitting open, an end instead of a beginning.

 

The Count was one of those people who everyone knew of and no one really _knew_ , and there was an undercurrent of fear mixed with the inevitable curiosity whenever he came up in conversation. His real name was Rumpelstiltskin, Regina knew, but no one dared speak it; instead, he was simply the Count, a famed intellectual, man of power, closest advisor to the Prince.

 

Husband to the Countess, and there were all sorts of stories surrounding her as well. The most intelligent woman in all the realm, some said (and of course this was still a time when intelligence was something admired in a realm’s leaders). The only one who could calm her husband, others insisted, and still others laughed and laughed and informed them that this was a man who could not be calmed.

 

Regina suddenly understood those people as their cohort came to a halt in front of the farm. Seeing him in person was strange, after all the talk. He was shorter than she’d expected, and his skin seemed to shimmer when the light glanced across it a certain way. Still, his steps out of the carriage were surprisingly graceful and his eyes were—the only word she could think of was _predatory_ , and she suddenly understood why he might be a valuable advisor to a prince of a land in turmoil. It wasn’t hard to imagine, the way he’d stalk his prey until they had no more fight left, until he could possess them.

 

He fixed her in his gaze, and no, it wasn’t hard to imagine at all.

 

“And you are?”

 

“Regina,” she said, curtsying. Soft, soft, delicate. _Relax, Darling_.

 

“I wonder if you’d do me the honor of bringing me to see your horses,” the Count said. “Regina.” Her name was something foreign in his mouth.

 

“Our horses?” her father asked.

 

“Yes,” replied the Count. “I’ve heard tell far and wide of these magnificent horses of yours.”

 

“ _Our_ horses?” her father asked again, because the truth was their horses weren’t anything particularly special and the whole town knew it, and if the whole town knew it it was likely that everyone far and wide knew it.

 

But of course the Count wasn’t really talking about the horses.

 

“Of course she will,” Cora said, and her fingernails dug into the skin at the top of Regina’s spine.

 

“Of course I will,” said Regina.

 

-

 

“Beautiful,” the Count pronounced when she opened the stable door to reveal the animals inside. “I’m surprised no one had heard of this farm before.”

 

“We are rather small,” Regina said, desperately uncomfortable.

 

“Truly a hidden gem,” he replied, grinning, and he was _playing_ with her. The bile in the back of her throat surged. His eyes were still predatory, still assessing her, but it wasn’t like the boys in the village, the way their gaze lingered at her chest and her curves and followed her when she turned away. It was more of—once she’d seen the baker’s assistant hover a ladybug over an open flame, and that’s what this was, more than anything, and she was the ladybug but she didn’t know what the flame was, she didn’t know what he _wanted_.

 

“If you say so, sir,” she said.

 

It was then that the farm girl entered. She was humming an off-key tune to herself as she lifted a pail of water that she proceeded to nearly drop when she saw the two of them. “Oh,” she said, and Regina knew that the farm girl could recognize wealth and power as well as anyone else could, maybe even better. “I—I’m sorry to intrude.”

 

“Don’t be,” the Count replied, and the smile was back and the gleam in his eyes was back and he was looking at the farm girl the same way he’d been looking at Regina a few minutes ago, and Regina felt a surge of helpless panic climb up behind her teeth. She didn’t know what he wanted but she suddenly was very certain the farm girl had it. And the Count kept _looking_ at her, staring until the uncomfortable tension in the room threatened to drown them all.

 

“That’s just the farm girl,” Regina said, fake-careless, her voice loud and nervous in her own ears. She flicked a practiced hand. “You’re dismissed.”

 

“Why,” said the Count, the weight of his hand a shocking pressure on her shoulder, “there’s no need for that. She must know the horses better than anyone, no?”

 

The farm girl had her eyes trained on the Count’s hand on Regina’s shoulder, on the way every inch of Regina was straining not to twist out of the familiar hold. Her jaw set. Regina gave her one more imploring glare, a silent plea. “Yes, I do,” she said, and Regina clenched her teeth and pushed herself up tall, a futile battle against the hand still resting on her skin.

 

-

 

The Count left after a while, seemingly satisfied with what he’d seen. Regina and her parents watched the procession leave for the castle, smiles plastered on and waving, waving.

 

“Well done, darling,” said Cora, and Regina’s skin crawled.

 

That night, she thought of the farm girl, alone in the stables, asleep in the straw. She thought of the way the farm girl’s eyes had hardened, those brave, brave eyes. Eyes that knew. She thought about the way she sometimes caught the farm girl looking at her, when she was smiling. How one time, when she’d been sick, the farm girl had brought her a pot of broth, face downcast like she couldn’t bear to listen to Regina’s thanks, or at the very least couldn’t bear to accept it.

 

And then she thought about the way the Count had looked at the farm girl and how it was somehow so, so much worse than the way he’d looked at Regina, because Regina could take it, she knew how, okay, she was ready, and the farm girl—and who even _knew_ where she’d come from, just shown up at their doorstep a few years ago with callused hands and a hungry face—didn’t have to go around sacrificing herself. There was no _reason_ for it, because Regina could _take_ it.

 

There was no reason for Regina to be thinking this much about the farm girl, either, and that was when she knew.

 

At first light, she went to the stables. The farm girl was already up, doing pull-ups in the corner (this was after pull-ups, but then again, with arms like the farm girl’s, everything was after pull-ups.)

 

“Far—,” she began, and then shook her head. “Emma. I need to talk to you.”

 

The farm girl—Emma, and of course her name was Emma, and it had never sounded so beautiful to Regina than in that moment—stood on shaky legs, came closer until Regina could see the sheen of sweat on her forehead and the flush of exertion in her cheeks and the way she had never looked so beautiful than in that moment. How had she been so blind?

 

“Can you...sorry, I couldn’t really hear, over there, and I thought I heard you say—”

 

“Emma,” Regina said again.

 

The farm girl let out a little choking noise, lifted her hand as if to touch Regina and then ran it through her own hair instead. “You know my name,” she said.

 

“Yes, Emma, I—”

 

“You know my _name_.”

 

“I love you,” Regina said. “I know this must come as something of a surprise to you, but I have loved you for several years now, and every second I love you more. I thought an hour ago that I loved you more than any human being has ever loved another, but a half hour after that I knew that what I felt before was nothing compared to what I felt then. Ten minutes after that, I realized that my previous love was a puddle compared to the high seas before a storm. Your eyes are like that, did you know that? They are.” She took a breath. “I love you so much more now than twenty minutes ago that there can be no comparison. I love you so much more now than when you opened that stable door that there can be no comparison. There is no room in me for anything but you. Dearest Emma, sweet, perfect Emma, only tell me that I have a chance to win your love.”

 

And Emma smiled, and then laughed, then and said, “Of course you do, _god_ , I’ve been in love with you ever since I started working here. I’ve been saying it to you for so long. Every time I said ‘as you wish,’ you thought I was answering you but you were simply hearing wrong. ‘I love you’ was what it was, but you never heard.”

 

And Regina smiled too, then, and cradled her cheek, and brought their lips together.

 

(Or at least, that’s what they would have said, if they were very different people. But this was Emma and Regina, mind you, and there were no such grand sweeping declarations at this stage in their tale.)

 

-

 

“Good,” Henry interjects fervently. “Love stories are one thing, but that was starting to get, like, _gross_.”

 

“Trust,” his grandfather replies, tone disapproving, but he’s laughing slightly like he’d expected the interruption.

 

Henry hides a smile. He’s seen a couple PG-13 movies, so he knows some stuff, and Mom and Ma have never been the type of parents who pat his head and tell him _when you’re older_ , which is what lots of his friends complain about. And he appreciates it, but still. _Ew_. Having to watch his moms kiss goodnight sometimes is more than enough of that.

 

He returns his attention to the story.

 

-

 

And so Emma said, “You know my _name_ ,” and Regina whispered, “Of course. Of course,” and they stood like that, foreheads nearly touching, breath clouding the air, mingling with the silence between them. Regina let her thumb come to rest on the corner of Emma’s mouth. Emma’s fingers were playing at Regina’s hip, the lightest of touches.

 

Finally, ever so slowly, Emma angled her head down, came closer. Waited like there was nothing else she could do, like the world would move forward forever without her and she’d be here, neck craned and eyes fluttering shut and hoping, hoping. And Regina—Regina twisted up to meet her, soft and yet not, no delicacy here, only clumsy fumblings and warm lips and a hint of teeth. Too close and not close enough, the smell of each other in their noses, in their hair. Regina moved and Emma moved with her, matched her push and pull, pressed against her like all the want in her could flow out through her pores.

 

Later, both of them would remember a tiny frisson of _something_ extending into the space around the two-become-one of them. Emma would think it looked colorful. Regina would insist it was an illusion (this was before static electricity). Neither would be quite sure it had happened, and there would be no one to confirm either way. Neither would mention it in the moment.

 

Eventually, they would understand.

 

When they could finally stop kissing each other, Regina let their foreheads rest together again. “Oh,” she said. The clarity of first love.

 

“Oh,” Emma agreed, smiling deep and sweet, and she reached for Regina’s hand where it lay on her back and brought it to her lips and kissed it in the middle, right in the center of her palm.

 

So no, there were no grand declarations. But they were very much in love all the same.

 

-

 

Cora was distant the next morning, thoughtful. Regina skirted her the way she always did when her mother was in one of these moods, quietly brushed her hair, did her chores. It was hard, at times, because her thoughts kept skating over Emma and the way Emma’s lips looked when they’d been thoroughly kissed and how her fingers felt threaded at the top of Regina’s neck, and was Emma thinking of her? Did Emma regret anything, and what would Emma say when she saw her next, what would she _do_?

 

Her mother had always talked about love being weakness, but Regina had never known it would be like this, like she couldn’t push Emma out of her thoughts, like every limb in her body itched to run down to the stables, like Emma was pulling her in and spinning her around. Like a piece of her had somehow gotten stuck behind Emma’s eyes.

 

“You have a simply ridiculous smile on your face, darling,” came her mother’s voice, and she shook herself, reset the lines of her face into something more appropriate. “Still thinking about the Count’s visit yesterday?”

 

“Oh,” Regina said. She wondered how convincing her nod could truly be. “Yes, that’s it.”

 

“I knew he’d come eventually,” Cora said, smiling too. “It won’t be long before the marriage offers will be flowing in.”

 

“Marriage offers?” Regina felt something drop out beneath her stomach. She’d known they would come, but it was different now, after Emma, and she didn’t understand why the _Count_ —

 

“He didn’t tell you?” Cora laughed. “Typical. He didn’t just come for the horses, Regina. He’s probably mentioning you to the Prince’s closest friends and advisors now.” She moved forward to stroke her thumb down Regina’s cheekbone. “This is everything we’ve ever worked for, darling. Soon you will be one of the most powerful women in the land.”

 

Regina stumbled back a step. “I don’t...what if that wasn’t what I wanted, anymore?”

 

Cora’s eyes were hard. “Don’t be silly. This is what you’ve always wanted.”

 

“I—” _It’s what you’ve always wanted_ , Regina longed desperately to say.

 

“Is there someone else?” Cora asked, and oh. Oh, no. “Is that what this is?”

 

“No,” Regina said, acid climbing into her mouth, “ _no_ , I was just wondering. I promise.”

 

Cora’s eyes held their sharpness for another minute and then dissolved into crinkle-pleased softness. “Good,” she said. “I’m proud of you, Regina.”

 

“Thank you, Mother,” said Regina, and she walked calmly to her room, brushed her hair another fifty strokes, and burst into tears, tiny, uncontrollable gasps of fear and guilt and happiness about to be stolen away.

 

Then she went to the stables.

 

It was almost like Emma had been waiting for her, really. She was leaning against a beam and her eyes met Regina’s, saw the faint tear tracks. _Saw_ them, and surged forward to greet her, to wipe them away. Gentle—too gentle—and Regina kissed the gentle away, kissed her fierce and deep until she made a noise and broke free.

 

They looked at each other. Both were full with so many words and yet only a few they could say to each other, and so Regina (quiet, quiet, pleading) said, “Run away with me,” except it turned into more of a question than anything else, the lilt in her voice colliding with the low disappointment in Emma’s as she said, (at the same time, at the _exact_ same time) “I’m leaving.”

 

There was a silence.

 

“You’re—” Regina swallowed. “You’re leaving?”

 

“I’m setting sail,” Emma said. “In the morning. I’m...I have to go.”

 

“Why?” the question tore itself out of Regina’s chest, uncontrollable. She didn’t understand why it was suddenly so hard to pretend in front of Emma. It never had been before.

 

“Look at you,” said Emma with a rueful smile, waving her hand toward Regina. “You’re—the _Count_ visited here to see you. You’re _going_ places, Regina, and I...well.” She gestured toward herself. “This is all I am right now.”

 

Regina swallowed hard. “Can’t you see that that’s enough?”

 

“Not for me,” Emma said, and Regina felt the balloon of hope that had been swelling inside her puncture, felt it suck the air out of her lungs until everything was twisting and _wrong_ , all wrong.

 

“Please,” she whispered, but Emma had already turned toward the other side of the stall, shoulders set so far back the blades stood out in sharp relief under her shirt.

 

“I’ll write you,” Emma responded, voice tight. A concession. “There’s a boy in the village who owes me a favor.”

 

Regina said nothing.

 

“And I’ll come back, eventually. You’ll see.”

 

Buried under her blankets that night, sick with heartbreak and curled up so tight she could squeeze her elbows around her knees, Regina couldn’t see much of anything.

 

She couldn’t see Emma, jaw locked with much of the same heartbreak, packing up her meager belongings, preparing for a journey away from everything familiar, from a place that—wasn’t home, really, but could have felt like it sometimes, could have become something more. She couldn’t see the way Emma let a few tears fall before swiping them away angrily, or the note Emma wrote, pen digging in so hard it almost ripped the paper, before reading it over for the third time and tearing it up in despondent frustration.

 

And Regina couldn’t see her mother, sitting up in bed, a satisfied smirk playing around her mouth as she thought of the conversation she’d had with a certain farm girl just a few hours before. A conversation about Regina’s future and all the possibilities it held, about the farm girl’s future and the distinct lack of them. A conversation that, she would find, had had an even better outcome than she’d expected, and one that would change all of their fates irreversibly.

 

But Regina couldn’t see any of this. And so she clutched her knees to her chest and pretended the pain there came from the way they dug into her ribs instead of the loss of something she didn’t even know if she’d ever had in the first place.

 

-

 

The strange thing was, the sadness only seemed to make Regina more beautiful. The combination of Emma’s departure and the arrival of her weekly letters gave Regina an _edge_ that hadn’t been there before, sharp but still softened slightly: a kind of world-wearied air that was disconcerting to see in one so young. She was quieter, more withdrawn. More mature, her mother remarked, and Regina couldn’t help but agree.

 

(Is this what maturity was, she wondered? The knowledge that happiness could be snatched away at any moment? Maybe that was why no one ever wanted to grow up.)

 

Emma’s letters never failed to arrive, though, hand-delivered by a boy from the village. Regina met him on her Sunday afternoon rides, breathless with anticipation and a spiraling certainty that this would be the day that he’d have nothing for her, that Emma would have finally moved on. Each time, she exhaled her relief and tore open the envelope with shaky hands, not daring to ask how Emma had managed to have it delivered from wherever she was.

 

For she was still at sea, Regina knew. Her letters were filled with tales of the new and wonderful things she’d seen, of the dynamics among the crew and her plans for when they finally made it to the next port. She told Regina how unbelievably wide the ocean was, still, after weeks sailing through it, how the way it roiled had made her sick at first, how sometimes it sparkled so bright she thought she had never seen something comparable until she remembered Regina’s eyes. (This sentence was so small Regina had to squint to read it, the letters cramming into each other and overlapping in places, and she kept the letter beneath her pillow for weeks afterward.) Emma spoke of the legends she’d heard, monsters and magic and people just like her finding their fortune on the same path she was taking. She spoke of how different everything was, how she never thought she’d find herself missing _butter_ , of all things. Little tidbits to make Regina laugh.

 

She signed every letter with _I miss you_ . That was how it was, with Emma, _I miss you_ and nothing more and that was enough. More than enough, if Regina was being honest with herself. The joy from opening Emma’s letters every week was enough to sustain her through anything, through the looming prospect of marriage offers and her ascent up the List and her parents’ clashes that were really her mother’s explosions. They carried her through it all.

 

That was why it hurt so much when news of Emma’s death came to the farm.

 

It was an ordinary day. A little cloudy, maybe, an ordinary winter day, and Regina was sitting by the window. It was the afternoon. She would remember every tiny detail, later, a foolish attempt by her traitorous brain to find something amiss, something that would signal the presence of a lie. That it had all been some horrible nightmare she could escape.

 

There was nothing, of course. Emma’s ship had been overrun by pirates, and this was true; Regina had allowed herself to doubt when she had first heard the news from her mother, the fake sympathy in Cora’s voice too much to take, sickly-sweet sorrow like a punch to the throat that left her gasping, weak. Then word spread from the village of the attack, and she could no longer allow herself to doubt.

 

Regina locked herself in her room for three days and nights. She ate nothing, barely drank, barely slept. Read over every one of Emma’s letters and then threw up into the toilet until she was dizzy and shaking. Cried, just once or twice, helpless sobs until there was nothing left inside her.

  
She emerged on the fourth morning cold and drawn. She was eighteen years old. She had lost the love of her life. And she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for referenced child abuse and forced engagement.

 

Slowly, and yet not slowly at all, Regina grew up. Her life at the farm was much the same as it had ever been, really, except that there was always the loss of Emma lingering at the edges. It was—difficult. Regina had loved stories as a child, and the characters within those tales always moved on after their grief. There was a new love in their life, or a new quest to undertake, or a ritual that somehow instantly put them at peace.

 

Her grief over Emma wasn’t like that. It surged up inside her at the strangest times—early in the morning, when the birds were singing, or when she saw a particularly beautiful sunset. It was dull but never dull enough, the pain lancing through her heart still sharp enough to make her eyes water. Sometimes, she would think of something clever and turn to tell Emma before she remembered she couldn’t, anymore. That she never would be able to again.

 

The grief subdued her. It was pointless to struggle, she knew now. Pointless, especially now that she had no options left, and so she stayed quiet as the flood of marriage offers began to arrive. The letters came sealed with red wax, her name embossed on the front (never her last name, though, only  _ The Fair Regina _ , the epithet apparently enough to distinguish the recipient), delivered by messengers on gleaming horses. They came from lords throughout the land, all bragging of their riches in an effort to gain her hand, to see her beauty in person and possess it. For she knew that was what they desired, no matter how they spoke of a companion, someone with whom to share their table and their belongings and their thoughts. They wanted a wife. They wanted a beautiful wife, and Regina was grown up and was not fooled by their pretty words.

 

The first batch Cora threw out entirely. Not rich enough, Regina surmised, because the truly wealthy lords would bide their time, weigh their options, avoid appearing too desperate. The second wave was more promising, and Cora sorted through it for two days and held on to a few, but still she waited. For what, Regina didn’t know, and didn’t care to wonder, because every ounce of her mother’s ambition kept her free another hour, another week. Or—if not free, then safe, safe where she knew the expectations and she could follow the rules and she understood how to play the game. Mostly. 

 

It was easier now that she didn’t care to fight. She thought about it sometimes, when the needles of the hairbrush cut into her scalp and she felt anger burning low in her stomach. And then she would look out the window towards the stables and remember and force herself to forget the anger, forget the useless strain of her limbs. There was no reward for anger anymore, no reason for hope.

 

Then the letter came at last, the letter that her mother must have been waiting for, and so it was that Regina became betrothed to the Prince.

 

Theirs was an easy courtship, easy because it was more going through the motions than anything else. A few afternoon rides together, a dinner so she could meet his parents. Formalities to conceal the fact that the deal was already in place, but Regina did not begrudge them. Every event pushed the impending date farther away, and it was easier to keep the wedding out of her mind when she was focused on wearing the right dress for an informal banquet or remembering the correct forms of address for the aging King and Queen.

 

The Prince was easy too, in his own way. Kind in the blandest of ways—a flower, fresh-picked, for her hair, or fresh fruit for their supper, or new tack for Rocinante. He cared very much about honor, Regina was told, and often traveled into nearby towns to drop a few coins into the cups of the beggars there.

 

Her mother would have called him a sheep. Privately, Regina agreed, but there were worse things than to be married to a sheep when the world was full of wolves.

 

Especially when a wolf lived so close, and though she did her best to avoid the Count he seemed to constantly appear. She was certain he was actively seeking her out, yet he was content to hover in the background, simply watching. Once he had come to her door to inquire about her wellbeing just as she’d been about to sleep, and she’d snapped at him so abruptly that he’d known something was off, the muted fear in her eyes leaving him more curious than ever. Still, he was the Prince’s right-hand man, and she knew better than to accuse him of anything. His power seemed even more imposing here in the palace than it had in the dimly lit barn at her farm, and Regina frequently wondered how a man like that could truly serve the Prince, or if indeed he did at all.

 

She moved into the palace several weeks before the wedding. More alone than she’d ever been, and she didn’t miss her family so much as wish for the comfort of their familiarity. There were flower arrangements to order and cakes to frost and all sorts of arguments over seating charts to be had. Regina continued her tradition of daily rides to get away from it all, the palace grounds a wider and safer haven than she had ever had before.

 

It was on one of these rides that she paused for breath within the forest. The wedding was in one week’s time, and perhaps the anxiety was what had driven her so far, pushed her deeper into the woods than she had ever gone before. She let herself fall forward on Rocinante’s back and rest for a few moments, the world still and calm around her.

 

Still and calm, that was, until a voice broke the quiet. “Miss?”

 

Regina sat up to look. There was a girl at the edge of the clearing to her right, around her age, maybe, or a few years younger. She wore a red cloak and was carrying a basket of something that looked like potatoes from Regina’s vantage point. She was pretty, too, and Regina wondered what she was doing here all alone.

 

“Is there a village nearby?” the girl asked, frowning in distress. Lost, then. Poor thing.

 

“No,” said Regina. “There is only the palace, and that is miles away.”

 

“Then there will be no one to hear you scream,” came a new voice from behind her, and she started and lashed out until she felt a searing pain at the side of her head and her vision faded into darkness.

 

-

 

Regina awoke on a ship. She knew at once that it was a ship, though she had never been on one before; the rolling motion was unmistakable, and her stomach, already rebelling at her sudden loss of consciousness, seemed to shake with the ship’s movements, turning over on itself until she was sure she was going to be sick.

 

“Aim for the edge of the cliffs,” a distant voice shouted. It was the same voice Regina had heard before, and she swallowed the bile climbing up her throat and stayed motionless.

 

“On it,” someone else said, just behind her, and then she felt the wind brush across her face and knew they had shifted direction. “She didn’t even wake up when we came about. You must have hit her pretty hard.”

 

“She’ll be fine,” the first voice snapped.

 

“She’s a small thing, isn’t she?”

 

“And your reward for taking care of her isn’t small, as you would do well to remember,” the first voice said, and Regina’s breath hitched before she could even it out again. “When the betrothed of the Prince is found in the middle of Midas’ kingdom after her kidnapping, he’ll be completely justified in attacking it, and we will have our payment.”

 

Regina felt the ship shift direction again. “Do you think she’ll be awake by the time we reach the cliffs?” the voice closer to her asked.

 

“She is already awake,” her other captor responded coolly. “She has been listening to us since I first shouted to you,” and Regina opened her eyes in shock.

 

Bad, bad, idea, the light lancing through her pupils and straight to her head, and she groaned. Tried to massage her temples and found her hands tied together in front of her, the rope rough against her wrists. “How did you know?” she asked weakly.

 

Her captor laughed. “You should know better than to try to fool me,  _ princess _ .”

 

“I’m not,” said Regina. She found that she was finally able to open her eyes. “I’m not a princess yet. You can let me go.” She wouldn’t beg. She knew better than to beg. 

 

Her captor—the original voice she had heard, the one who seemed to be in charge—snorted. She was younger than Regina had expected, more beautiful, red hair unfurling behind her in the wind and blue eyes piercing as she smirked. 

 

“What would be the fun in that?” she asked mockingly, and turned back to face the shore. “Faster, Mulan. We’re almost there.”

 

The woman behind Regina—Mulan, then—rolled her eyes at the dramatics but pulled in the line all the same. Regina caught the outline of a sword hilt strapped to her side and shivered. 

 

She heard a shout come from the back of the ship, and followed Mulan and the leader’s gaze to where the girl in the red cloak was approaching. She had discarded her basket, and there was a harder, more capable edge to her that hadn’t been there before. Regina was impressed despite herself.

 

“There’s someone coming,” the girl said. “And they’re gaining on us.”

 

“Inconceivable,” the leader retorted, but there was a hint of worry in her expression now, and Regina savored it. “This is the fastest ship in the kingdom.” 

 

The girl cocked an eyebrow. “Zelena—”

 

“Faster,” the leader—Zelena—said, teeth clenched. Mulan and the other girl shot each other a glance before going to work on the ship, and soon the wind was whipping around them all as they sped towards land.

 

And still the ship approached.

 

Regina had turned to watch it, her bound hands resting on her knees as she tried to judge its progress. She felt a strange connection to it, this mysterious vessel coming to her, coming for her. Of course, it might have been about to re-kidnap her (was that a term? She didn’t have much experience with kidnapping in the first place) or to blow them all up, and not to rescue her at all, but she felt comforted all the same.  _ The enemy of my enemy is my friend _ , and so she watched.

 

“It’s even closer now,” the cloaked girl said after a few minutes.

 

“Inconceivable,” Zelena insisted. Regina concealed a smirk, vaguely amused through her terror.

 

“It doesn’t matter,” said Mulan. “We’re at the cliffs. We’ll lose them at the top.”

 

She ran the ship aground, the slide of the rocks against its hull grating against Regina’s teeth, and hopped down, helping Zelena and then Regina descend as the other girl leapt from the rail onto shore.

 

“Show-off,” Mulan said quietly, smiling at this.

 

“Enough,” snapped Zelena. “Red, transform. It’s time to climb.”

 

Regina had just enough time to wonder if Red was the girl’s name before she was  _ changing _ , the bones in her face jutting out and her clothes snapping like stretched rubber. Fur sprouted from her skin as she fell to the ground, and Regina shut her eyes in panic and confusion. 

 

When she opened them, there was a wolf crouched before her. A wolf, but somehow different from every wolf she had ever seen, eyes too intelligent, movement too sinewy. Regina had heard tell of these creatures in stories but it was another thing to observe the transformation, watch the sharp teeth grow where none had been before and the tail emerge into thin air. This was a pure predator, an animal that could kill her within seconds, and yet an animal with a girl inside. Regina desperately hoped that the girl was in control now.

 

Zelena waved a hand, and a large harness appeared on the ground. Together, she and Mulan fixed the straps, positioning it carefully on the wolf’s back until it was snug. Then she took one of the hanging straps and fastened it around herself until she was held tight to the wolf as well. Mulan pulled at the straps once, nodded to herself, and then held out a hand in Regina’s direction.

 

Regina allowed herself one last glance toward the sea, one last view of the tiny ship still speeding toward them, before Mulan lifted her, seemingly without effort, into the harness as well, strapped herself in, and they began to  _ move _ .

 

The wolf sprung forward so quickly Regina barely had time to process the motion, and suddenly she was vertical, clenching tightly to thick fur as her legs dangled into the air. The fear took her breath away. The wolf was climbing  _ up  _ the cliffs—the steepest cliffs in the land, where no human dared travel—with three people attached to its back, claws digging into cracks in the rock. Impossible, and yet still they climbed. They’d never make it.

 

“We’ve got a problem,” Mulan said, and pointed her chin toward the ground. A tiny figure, dressed in black and barely visible from their position, had descended from the ship. “They’ve found the rope.”

 

“It won’t hold,” said Zelena, and yet they all watched as the figure began hauling itself, hand over hand, up the rope that extended from the top of the cliffs. “It’s too old, it’s been there for years. Why do you think we’re climbing this way? It’ll snap when they’re halfway there.”

 

Mulan said nothing, but Regina saw the disagreement in the set of her jaw. Regina couldn’t help but be amazed at their pursuer; they were clearly strong, to be able to follow like this, and they must have cared very much, to risk everything.

 

“They’re gaining on us,” Mulan said after a few minutes.

 

“Inconceivable,” Zelena muttered.

 

“You keep saying that word,” said Mulan. “I don’t think it means what you think it means.”

 

Zelena shot her a look. “We’ll cut the rope when we reach the top,” she said. “Hurry, Red,” and the wolf surged forward with renewed energy.

 

Regina dug her teeth into her lower lip. They were almost there, and still the figure was closing the gap, arms taut with the strain. She hoped that they would catch up to the wolf, that they would—rescue her, or take her away, or whatever they planned to do before Zelena could let them fall to their death. A senseless hope, really, because at least she knew exactly what her current captors planned to do with her, and there was safety in that knowledge. But she found that she wanted this brave stranger to live. She wanted to know what was so important that they would risk so much for it.

 

The wolf reached the top at last, collapsing in an exhausted pile, and Mulan unstrapped them so it could transform back to a girl, who covered herself in embarrassment until Zelena tossed her what appeared to be a change of clothes. “Go ahead,” Zelena told Mulan, and Mulan pulled out her sword, hesitated.

 

“A shame,” she said, “to kill someone fearless enough to have followed us this far.”

 

“Go  _ ahead _ ,” Zelena repeated, and some unspoken message passed between them. Mulan shook her head in distaste, and then the sword flashed and they watched as the rope tumbled into the sea.

 

The four of them crowded the edge in morbid fascination before freezing in surprise. “They’re  _ still climbing _ ,” Regina said, awed. The sound of her own voice was strange after so much silence.

 

“Incon—” Zelena began, but cut herself off. “Fine. Mulan, wait here. Kill them when they to the top. They’ll be tired, you can make it quick. Red, you come with me, and bring the princess. We have a war to start.”

 

Dragged along behind them, Regina watched Mulan spin her sword in preparation, thought of the grim determination visible in the lines of their pursuer’s shoulders, and hoped.

 

-

 

Mulan waited for what she estimated to be about ten minutes before she called down the figure. “How’s it going down there?”

 

“Not great,” came the voice, slightly annoyed and weak with exertion. It was pitched higher than Mulan had expected, and she wondered—

 

“Right. Sorry.” She waited another five minutes, pacing the terrain and identifying spots to avoid, and then returned to the edge. “How much longer do you think it’ll be?”

 

“I don’t  _ know _ ,” the voice retorted, this time most certainly annoyed. “It’s pretty hard to climb up these cliffs, actually, especially when you’re only human and  _ especially _ when there’s someone at the top with a sword who keeps trying to talk to you.”

 

“What if I helped you up?”

 

“Why would you do that?” The figure snorted.

 

“It’s the right thing to do.”

 

The figure outright laughed at this. “Oh, so you’re one of those.”

 

“I’m serious,” Mulan said. “I give you my word.”

 

“That means nothing to me.”

 

Mulan took a breath. “I swear on the life of my first love,” she said, solemn.

 

The figure paused at that, squinted up at her. “Holy shit,” they said, and then: “Yeah, okay. I guess I believe you.”

 

Mulan looked pleased at this, and lowered down the fragment of rope coiled by the edge of the cliff. Hauled the figure up until they were both standing, out of breath, on firm ground.

 

“Thank you,” the woman said. For it appeared to be a woman before her, although Mulan didn’t like to assume these things, black mask tight against fair skin and body tense like she was accustomed to being attacked with no warning.

 

“Of course.”

 

“So now—”

 

“Now we fight,” Mulan said. “I hope you didn’t think that gesture meant I would spare you.”

 

The woman raised an eyebrow, battling a sardonic smile. “Of course not.”

 

“You seem like a very courageous woman,” Mulan said. “I hate to kill you,” and her tone was genuinely rueful, so much so that the woman in black tilted her head in astonishment.

 

“You too,” she said. “I hate to die.”

 

And so they both lifted their swords, and the battle began.

 

They were both masters, these women, swords flashing faster than the eye could follow, testing, pushing, lunging forward to strike and then swooping back to regain their balance. Mulan had a cleaner technique, and this much was clear from the outset, but the woman in black held nothing back; she was leaning into glancing blows in order to land her own, risking more than Mulan was willing to. She was fighting  _ for  _ something, instead of to achieve something, and that can be a very, very dangerous thing.

 

Their fight brought them back and forth over the rough ground, the sharp sound of their blades colliding ringing around them. They were panting by now, arms nearly shaking with the force of keeping their swords aloft. The woman in black slipped and Mulan sliced at her side and then she was staggering, clearly cut. Desperation tinged her attacks, and her parries came slower and slower, a grunt of pain accompanying each one.

 

“You know—” began Mulan, testing the woman’s guard, except that the woman dodged backward with a glance at the ground and Mulan tripped over the root she’d avoided, rolling deftly into a defensive position. Too late, though, and the woman had knocked her sharply over the head before she could rise to her feet. She raised the point of her sword uselessly, vision blurred and fuzzy, and the woman ran a hand through her blonde hair.

 

“Damn,” she said quietly, and then the sword hilt came down once more and Mulan slept for a time.

 

When the woman reached the path again, Red was waiting for her. The woman had expected as much, but being faced with an enormous, highly intelligent wolf was enough to make anyone hesitate, and she was already injured. She considered, briefly, trying to reason with it.

 

She had considered for several seconds when the wolf jumped. It leapt through the air and pinned her flat against the ground, its weight a solid, terrifying pressure on her chest. Its claws dug into her biceps, and she thrashed in futile panic against them until dots of blood appeared along her arms. Its jaws opened. She allowed herself to think of the princess-to-be hurrying away from her, alone and unsure and afraid no matter what she might say to the contrary, and she closed her eyes and gave one final shove.

 

Light flared before her closed eyes. When she opened them, the wolf was crumpled at her feet.

 

“The hell?” the woman muttered, poking gingerly at it with a worn boot. She looked up to where the other two had escaped, down again at the wolf, and shrugged, patting it awkwardly before jogging after them.

 

She crested the hill at last and found Zelena waiting, a knife to Regina’s throat and defensive anger flashing beneath the surface of her eyes. Before them lay a picnic spread, the fabricated perfection of it jarring against the stark landscape. “Stop moving, or she dies,” Zelena said, inching the blade closer, and the woman held up both hands and froze on the spot. 

 

“I just want to talk.”

 

“You killed my fr—my partners,” said Zelena, voice wavering, and the woman made no move to correct her. “We both know that isn’t all you want.”

 

“Fine,” the woman snapped. “I’d also really like to punch you, but it’s pretty clear we’re at a standoff, so.”

 

“A fight on my terms, then.”

 

“What, being an asshole?”

 

“Wits,” Zelena retorted, teeth clenched.

 

“You think you’re smart?” the woman asked. She was needling, voice laced with incredulity.

 

“Smarter than you,” Zelena said, and the woman winced—a tiny movement, but there nonetheless, and Zelena looked delighted at the victory.

 

“Fine.” The woman strode forward, pulled a small packet out of her pocket. “Iocane powder,” she said by way of explanation. “Deadly, and invisible to human senses. I put it in one of the cups, you choose which cup to drink, one of us loses. Simple.”

 

Zelena chuckled. “Oh, I like this.”

 

The woman neglected to reply, instead sitting and taking both cups, turning her back for a second before returning them to their places on the spread, one in front of Zelena and one above her own place setting. Her gaze flickered briefly to Regina, held still at daggerpoint, and yearning and fear and  _ want _ rose in her expression before she shuttered them away again. “Your move,” she said, leaning back, every muscle in her body a study in feigned relaxation.

 

“It’s so  _ easy _ ,” laughed Zelena.

 

“Oh?”

 

“You think you’re smarter than I am,” Zelena explained. “You would never have put it in your cup, because that’s the first place you’d expect me to look. So I obviously can’t choose the cup in front of me.”

 

“Great,” the woman said. “Seems you’ve figured it out already, so—”

 

“ _ No _ ,” Zelena hissed, her face alight with some strange joy. “Because you’re a woman of action. You play the short game, not the long one. You would rather have the poison closest to you, so I obviously can’t choose the cup in front of you.”

 

“This is getting kind of boring—”

 

“Look!” Zelena shouted suddenly, pointing at a spot in the distance, and the woman turned for a moment to observe her (unchanged) surroundings before spinning back to face her enemy.

 

“Distractions won’t help you now.”

 

“Fine,” said Zelena. “Let us drink,” and she brought her own cup to her lips, draining it with a self-satisfied smirk as her limbs loosened with the relief of seeing the woman do the same.

 

“You chose wrong,” the woman said.

 

“You only  _ think _ I chose wrong,” crowed Zelena, her grip on the dagger loosening even further, and the woman caught the motion and grinned.

 

“There was no poison,” she said, and her fist flew to catch Zelena in the jaw. “I told you. I just really wanted to punch you in the face.”

 

-

 

“Impressive,” Regina remarked dryly as her captor collapsed at her side and the woman removed her blindfold (gentle, so strangely gentle). The woman exhaled sharply, a corner of her mouth pulling up.

 

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sure you could have done better.”

 

“I  _ could  _ have,” Regina retorted, vaguely offended, and then she realized that the woman’s tone hadn’t even been mocking. Instead, it had been softer than she’d heard it before, familiar and not all at once. It tugged at something, a thread of memory that refused to fully show itself.

 

The woman held out a hand.

 

“Come with me?”

 

“No,” said Regina, “I don’t think so.”

 

Her rescuer threw her head back in frustration. “Are you always like this?”

 

“Unwilling to follow masked strangers who climb up thousand foot cliffs to capture me? Yes, in general, though I haven’t had many experiences to draw from.”

 

The woman sighed. “Look,” she said. “You can either stay here and wait for your precious prince until  _ she _ ,” and she gestured toward Zelena sprawled on the ground, “wakes up and kidnaps you all over again,  _ or _ —”

 

“He’s not my prince,” Regina said.

 

“What?”

 

“I mean—don’t call him that. We’re not even married yet.”

 

The woman studied her. She flushed.

 

“Or,” the woman continued slowly, still looking at her as if she’d revealed something important, “you can come with me. And I promise not to hurt you.”

 

Regina considered this. Thought of returning to the palace and living the fairytale life she was supposed to, that bland happy ending that had once seemed all she could ask for, a loveless marriage and an illusion of power that gave her no power at all.

 

And then she thought of hidden dreams of adventure and discovery, of possibilities and choices and second chances. And she found, despite everything, that she believed her, this woman who’d fought and bled to reach her side, whose voice kept tickling at her brain, who looked at her like she couldn’t look away and said  _ I promise not to hurt you _ like she couldn’t imagine an alternative.

 

“Masked stranger it is then,” Regina said, lips quirking up at the side, and she took the woman’s hand and allowed herself to be pulled off toward the unknown.

 

-

 

The masked stranger turned out to be in more of a hurry than Regina had expected.

 

“Can you  _ slow down _ ?” she panted, stumbling over a patch of stones.

 

“Nope,” the woman said grimly, casting her eyes toward the sun. Regina was pretty sure she’d actually sped up. “No time.”

 

At this, Regina ripped her arm out of the woman’s grasp. “No time for  _ what _ ?” she asked. “Where are you taking me? Why did you even—you know what, don’t bother answering. I’m staying here. The Prince will be along to rescue me in a few hours.”

 

“You must love him very much, to have so much faith,” the woman said, and her voice was so chock-full of loathing that Regina shivered. 

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

“No? I’m surprised. You seem the type to marry for _ true love _ , or some other ridiculous concept.”

 

Regina laughed, low and bitter. “I would have been, once,” she admitted.

 

“Really?” The woman leaned to her right side. It was a strangely awkward movement, so nonchalant it was hard to take as genuine. “What happened?”

 

This woman didn’t get to know. This woman didn’t get this part of her, this hole in her heart that hadn’t gone away even after so many years. This woman, whoever she was, could never understand. “It didn’t work out,” Regina said, and the understatement of it made her want to laugh helplessly or sob until there was nothing left. Maybe both.

 

“I see.” There was an undercurrent of disappointment in the woman’s voice now. Good. “You seemed to have moved on pretty easily, though.”

 

And Regina surged up, disbelief and all-consuming anger coursing through her, threats of violence hovering on her lips because how  _ dare _ she. “You have  _ no  _ idea what I felt,” she spat. “You have  _ no  _ idea what it’s like to find out that—that—” She took a shuddering breath. “Don’t presume to tell me that I moved on.”

 

“Do you love him?” the woman asked. Quiet, so quiet, and Regina didn’t understand but it felt  _ important _ , even with the rage still seething in her blood.

 

“No,” she said. “I have loved only once, and I will never love again.”

 

“You’re telling the truth,” said the woman in awe. “I can always tell, and—you’re telling the  _ truth _ .” She stepped closer, hand making jerky movements at her side like she was trying to hold it there, and still Regina didn’t understand, couldn’t quite grasp what it all meant, the voice and the questions and this strange sense of familiarity. Then the woman let her hand rise up toward Regina’s cheek, and it was all too much, the pressing need rising behind Regina’s spine to get  _ back _ , and so she said “Get  _ away _ from me,” and pushed the woman with so much force that she fell backward and rolled, rolled.

 

The thing was, there had been a valley just behind them, and so when the woman fell it was down the steep curve of the hill, through brambles and brush and pebbles, and these horrible grunts of pain were escaping her, audible even to Regina at the top of the hill.

 

And then came her voice.

 

“As...you...wish,” the words weak and distant but  _ there _ , coming from the figure tumbling into the valley, and Regina’s chest squeezed until she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, because—

 

“Emma?” she asked into the now-empty air, and when there was no answer she made a muffled choking sound, took several steps back, and launched herself down the hill as well.

 

It was a painful tumble down, brambles catching in her hair and her dress and and the crooks of her elbows, but it didn’t matter, how could it, because when she reached the bottom Emma was there, barely moving but alive, alive,  _ alive _ . 

 

“Oh,” Regina said. She was horrified to find that her eyes had somehow filled with tears. 

 

“Hi,” Emma said, and it was suddenly impossible that she hadn’t recognized that voice, soft and sweet and no longer tinged with a hint of strained ferocity.

 

“Oh,” Regina said, crying now, and she ripped Emma’s mask off until she could see her at last, see those blue-green eyes and chapped lips and that growing, uncontrollable smile. Regina kissed her right on that smile and sobbed with the rightness of it, kissed her again and laughed. The joy that comes from miracles.

 

“I missed you,” she whispered against Emma’s cheek. Emma pushed her hair back and kissed her eyelids, one after the other.

 

“I missed you too,” she said. “God, so much.”

 

“I thought you were  _ dead _ ,” said Regina, and if she started crying she’d never stop so instead she dug her fingernails into the soft skin behind her knee and pushed until it stung more than her eyes. It was easy, so easy, to forget in the heat of seeing Emma again, but the grief and anger and pain of loss had never left her, and now they transformed into resentment and some instinct of self-preservation that pushed at her to push Emma away. Emma had  _ left  _ her, had gone at a time when Regina had needed her most, and Regina couldn’t pretend that nothing had changed no matter how much her traitorous brain wanted her to.

 

“I know,” Emma said. “I know, and I’m sorry—”

 

“You’re  _ sorry _ ?” Regina shifted onto the ground and stared at her. “Did you even think of me? You knew all this time that I thought you were dead, and you were—what, cozying up with  _ pirates _ ? Sailing the high seas?”

 

“I can explain—”

 

“Explain how you let me live with the knowledge I was responsible for your death? Go ahead,  _ dear _ .” She pushed all of her confusion and fury into the word, let it hang between them until it took up the entire space.

 

“What?” Emma was gaping at her now. “Regina, how could you think you were responsible for anything?”

 

“How couldn’t I?” she asked softly. “You left..for me, or because of me, I still don’t know. And then—” It still hurt, to think of that day, and it was ridiculous that it still hurt, because Emma was here and alive and she was  _ angry _ at Emma, furious at her betrayal and her lack of understanding. Except it did still hurt. “You were dead.” Her voice cracked, and she cursed it. “And I was alone.”

 

“No,” said Emma, reaching again for Regina, and Regina stumbled backward. “God, Regina,  _ no _ , never you, I mean—your mother, maybe, but she’s always been a piece of work—”

 

“My  _ mother _ —she did this?”

 

“It’s...complicated,” Emma said. “I thought you knew that part, anyway.”

 

“I didn’t,” Regina snapped, and she was so tired of the lies and the half-truths and the mysteries, of always being the last one to know. 

 

But Emma simply looked up toward the ridge, where tens of men on horseback were now visible, and shook her head. “We don’t have time,” she said. “They’ll be here any second, just, please...trust me?” She held out her hand again, eyes pleading.

 

Regina looked back at her, steady, the anger a simmering heat instead of a boiling one now. Emma was different now, sharper, no longer the stable girl who’d smiled at her in the afternoon light. She’d grown apart from her, away from her. She’d grown  _ up _ , they both had, and Regina wondered if the thing that had brought two young, lonely girls together was gone forever. Theirs had been a desperate sort of love, after all, a haven. An innocent love despite the fact that even at that age neither of them had been innocent. The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, or whatever.

 

And yet. And yet, Emma’s eyes, open and wide and clear, seeing her like she hadn’t been seen since that sun-soaked morning in the stables, a promise of safety and trust and those  _ kisses _ , some unfamiliar feeling ballooning up into her chest the way it had when she’d pushed Rocinante into a gallop for the very first time. Emma and her idiotic recklessness, scaling cliffs and dueling and that look she got when she had a goal, that single-mindedness that could only come from connection and care and something neither of them would ever dare to name. Emma _ fighting _ , and all this for her?

 

For her, still? 

  
“Okay,” Regina said, and she took Emma’s hand once more and held on tight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for non-graphic torture.

 

Emma led her to the Fire Swamp.

 

“You have _got_ to be kidding me,” said Regina. The Fire Swamp was infamous for its treacherous landscapes, quicksand and ferocious beasts and jets of flame that appeared in seconds and burnt men to a crisp. It was said that only a few people had ever made it out alive, and most of those had been so haunted by their experiences within the swamp that they’d never spoken of it again.

 

Emma shrugged, sheepish, and the resemblance to the puppy the Prince let roam around the palace was uncanny for a moment. “They won’t follow us here.”

 

“They won’t follow us because they know we’ll _die_.”

 

“Not if I have anything to do with it.”

 

“Emma,” Regina said. It was meant to be annoyed but came out half-affectionate, which she resented.

 

“I’ll protect you,” said Emma.

 

Regina rolled her eyes. “Oh, wonderful,” she said, allowing an edge of sarcasm to enter her voice. “My very own white knight.”

 

“I’m serious,” Emma said, vaguely annoyed.

 

Regina sighed, and then: “Lead the way,” she said, steady. Really, she’d made her choice a long time ago.

 

-

 

Things Regina would remember from the fire swamp:

 

Emma’s eyes, strong and deep, as she looked at her without question and said, “we’ll make it out of here,” and Regina thinking of _love is weakness_ and hating herself for wanting to believe;

 

Emma’s sword hacking at the branches blocking their path, wood chips flying into the air around them, cloaking the ends of their hair and the backs of their necks, the dense air making them both cough at odd intervals;

 

Jets of fire shooting from the ground, quiet hisses their only warning, and Emma’s hand warm at her waist, pulling her away from the instant heat, although somehow Emma’s fingers seemed to burn hotter than any flame;

 

Listening to Emma’s story, an incredible tale of a pirate attack and a captain who’d looked in her eyes as she told him she’d known real love and who’d kept her alive so he could laugh at her, who’d been menacing and petty and a little too flirtatious but who’d made her his deputy when he was ready to retire, who’d passed his title and his ship and his reputation on to her, left her with a crew who would have followed her to hell and back;

 

Falling suddenly into a pit of quicksand, sucking in a shocked breath and inhaling nothing but earth, her lungs constricting and her nose and ears filling and the sheer certainty that she was going to die, clawing uselessly at grains of sand before a familiar hand twisted around her arm and _yanked_ , hauled her up with a thick vine and sheer force of will until she and Emma had emerged, gasping and utterly spent, and collapsed on top of each other;

 

An enormous rat, the slightest purple tinge visible in the sheen of its fur, vaulting straight into their path and knocking Emma over, biting at her shoulder and her cheek and her neck, Emma shouting in fear and agony and Regina slamming a branch into the beast’s skull with so much force that it lay still while Emma shook with relief;

 

Telling Emma about the time after she’d left, halting explanations of letters and proposals and resignation, Emma’s eyes soft and yet without pity, Emma’s shoulder gentle against her own;

 

One particular moment when she’d paused to wipe the dirt off her face and had asked Emma if she’d missed anything and Emma had pointed to the spot where her jawline met her left ear, had scraped it off with a nail so gentle that Regina’s breath caught and held as Emma’s hand lingered a beat too long;

 

Finally, _finally_ , reaching the end, the dense trees giving way to a meadow and a burbling stream, and Regina sinking to the ground with the knowledge that they were alive and together and Emma letting her knuckles brush against Regina’s hip as she smiled, expression the same as it had been when Regina had said her name all those years ago.

 

“Told you I’d protect you,” Emma teased—was that her _tongue_ sticking out, what a child—and Regina hummed in amusement.

 

“Remind me again who saved you from the rodent.”

 

“True.” Emma’s joking tone had faded to something smoother, more careful. Regina turned to her and traced the line of her cheek up to her hairline. Emma was looking at her like she couldn’t look away.

 

“I—” Regina started, except the words wouldn’t come and so she leaned forward to press a kiss to the very corner of Emma’s mouth as Emma held her. No restraint, only solidity and heat and safety, and when she pulled back they were both flushed with possibility.

 

(Of course, that was when it all came crashing down.)

 

The trumpets were sounding before either of them had time to react; one minute they were alone amidst the meadow and the stream and the sky and the next they were surrounded by what was clearly a troop of the Prince’s men, their horses huffing in protest as they pulled sharply on the reins.

 

Beside her, Emma swore. Regina was still, frozen, filled with the awful certainty that she’d used up all her good luck for a lifetime. _Look what hope gets you, darling_ , and her mother had been right to keep her from this fate after all.

 

“Surrender the Princess!” the Prince shouted, riding up through the gap his men had left. The Count waited silently behind him, his own horse dark as night.

 

Emma had unsheathed her sword, but Regina knew it would do no good, not with numbers like this, not when the Prince had that righteous fury in his eyes and his soldiers had been hunting them for hours. Not when Emma’s protective arm against her chest and their bodies angled together had already marked her as a more than willing captive.

 

She also knew that Emma would still try, foolhardy as she was.

 

And so Regina did the only thing she could.

 

“If I come with you, will you promise not to hurt this woman?”

 

“Regina, _no_ ,” Emma hissed in horror.

 

The Prince rode closer. “What?”

 

“Promise not to hurt her,” said Regina.

 

The Prince watched her for a second. She could see traces of confusion and betrayal in his eyes, but it didn’t matter anymore, really, because Emma would be safe and how could she ask for anything more, after that?

 

Regina had heard it said that love was the most selfish thing of all, because those who had it would do anything to keep it, would kill or lie or cheat to hold onto it for themselves. But the people who said that had never felt what it was to love someone so much you would have done anything for them. Not to have them, not to keep them. To _save_ them. Love wasn’t greed, it was sacrifice. It was _selfless_ , not selfish, and anyone who said otherwise had never really known it.

 

“You have my word,” the Prince said, and Regina nodded slightly and let the tension flow out of her limbs and stepped forward with her chin held high. Let the Prince pull her up on his stallion, hands too rough and somehow erasing the imprint of Emma’s fingers that had clung to her waist. Ignored the way Emma staggered as if in pain, sword falling to the ground as she looked at Regina in betrayal.

 

“I’m sorry,” Regina mouthed, a single tear dripping down her cheek and falling to the earth, and then the Prince had snapped the reins and Emma was disappearing in the distance, fingers reaching into the air like she could bridge the space between them, like if she reached out far enough the force of her want would bring Regina spinning back towards her.

 

Life was pain, Regina knew now. Anyone who said otherwise was selling something.

 

-

 

“Come,” said the Count when the dust had settled and Emma had composed herself. “We must get you to your ship.”

 

Emma shook her head. “Bullshit.”

 

The Count sighed. “Crude, but fair,” he noted, and then one of the soldiers was moving in Emma’s peripheral vision and there was only darkness.

 

-

 

“Hold on,” Henry says. “I thought this was the good type of story.”

 

“And what type is that?” his grandfather asks.

 

“You know. The type with a happy ending.”

 

“We’re not at the end yet, mijo.”

 

“Yeah, but—” Henry exhales the kind of exasperated sound that only children faced with uncomprehending adults can. “Regina lost Emma, _again_. And now she has to marry the Prince! I don’t want her to marry the Prince.”

 

“Do you want me to keep going, or not?”

 

Henry lets his lower lip jut out. Only a little, though, because he’s nearly twelve now and sulking is for babies. “I _guess_.”

 

“Here we go,” his grandfather says, and the sound of his voice envelops Henry once more.

 

-

 

Regina was devastated the week before the wedding. If losing hope once had weakened her, losing it a second time had crushed her; she’d had a vision of what she could have had and then had it ripped away. She spoke only when questioned, withdrew from everyone around her. Gone were the afternoon rides and the pleasantries and the determination to carve out a life where, in moments of solitude, she could be something at least _resembling_ content. This was her future, but she could no longer forget enough to pretend to embrace it.

 

She had the impression of always being very still while everyone rushed about her. Palace attendants rushed to organize the festivities. The Prince rushed to discover the identities of her initial kidnappers, claiming he would destroy them all for daring to touch his beloved. The Count rushed from shadowy stairways and to the Prince’s side and through her nightmares.

 

There were many nightmares. She dreamt often of stepping out into the center of her kingdom’s people, of greeting them with smiles and silver coins and good wishes until an old, grey-haired woman suddenly emerged from the crowd. _Boo_ , the woman chanted, _you princess of garbage, of refuse, you who had love and gave it up_ , and she would move closer and closer until the heat of her breath and the hatred in her eyes woke Regina, sweat-soaked and gulping for air.

 

It was true. All of it was true, and yet she could never regret it, because Emma was alive on a ship somewhere, and now she _knew_ Emma was alive.

 

The Prince came to her chambers one day. She assumed she’d stayed in bed long enough for it to be concerning. “I don’t understand,” he said.

 

“You wouldn’t,” said Regina.

 

He shook his head in confusion. “This...sadness, whatever it is, will go away after our marriage. We can all move on.”

 

Regina turned over and did not answer.

 

Except that the seed was planted in the back of her mind. What if Emma couldn’t move on? What if Regina’s betrayal—for that was certainly how it had appeared to Emma, who seemed to only understand the concept of sacrifice when she was the one doing the sacrificing for other people—was still eating at her?

 

Emma’s last view of Regina had been her riding off into the distance, abandoning Emma to her ship and a life of danger and painful loneliness all over again, and suddenly the knowledge of that was intolerable. If Regina could—could explain, could tell Emma why she’d done it, they might have resolution. Emma could go off into her future, could _live_ , and Regina could finally sleep without hateful eyes burning through her dreams.

 

Emma might even come for her, but Regina locked that thought away in her treacherous brain.

 

So she wrote a letter.

 

It wasn’t like the letters Emma had sent her when they were young. She had no stories to tell or declarations to make. There was only the desperate need to make Emma see that her life was more valuable than any faint hope of their happiness together.

 

Regina remembered one of the fairytales her father had read her as a child, in which two lovers had chosen death rather than be separated. She’d always thought it was particularly foolish. Love over life and all that. She’d given Emma a _chance_.

 

_I’m sorry_ , she signed the letter, although she didn’t know if she was the way Emma wanted her to be. And then: _I’ll miss you_.

 

The Prince agreed reluctantly to send his four fastest ships to all corners of the ocean, each with a copy of the letter.

 

“It’s just to explain,” she said quietly, a bit disconcerted by his expression. “I thought you of all people would understand, with the importance of honor and all. She did rescue me.”

 

“What are you hoping for, Regina?” he asked her.

 

She flinched at her name in his mouth and cursed herself for it. “Nothing,” she insisted.

 

He turned to leave, paused. “Did you ever consider that she might not want anything to do with you now?”

 

“Yes,” said Regina, jaw set. She had.

 

He sighed. “I’ll send them,” he said. “And the wedding’s in two days’ time, in case you’ve forgotten.”

 

-

 

Emma woke to dull pain in a dimly lit room. Her shoulder and head were throbbing in tandem, and there was a damp, earthy smell in the air. She opened her eyes, saw only a stone roof in the low light. Some instinct raised the hairs on the back of her neck.

 

“Oh good, you’re awake,” said a voice from beside her, and she sat up in shock.

 

Or at least, she tried to sit up, and was immediately forced down by the restraints holding her. She rotated her head and found that she was bound hand and foot to a large wooden table. Several attempts to test the flexibility of the ties made it clear they would not be easy to slip.

 

Trapped. She swallowed down the reflexive panic and focused on her breathing. Her cuts and bruises appeared to have been tended to while she’d been unconscious, and the thought made her shudder. Only then did she remember the voice, and she strained her neck to see who had spoken.

 

It was the Count, of course. He was sitting next to her, whistling as he fiddled with some strange contraption. It appeared to be some sort of vacuum, with suction cups attached at both ends. Emma had never seen anything like it.

 

“Hello,” he said cheerfully to her, without looking away from his work. “I hope you’re feeling better.”

 

Emma snorted. “Yeah, okay.”

 

He turned to her, eyebrows raised in a mockery of horror at her disbelief. “I do! I take my experiments very seriously, you know.”

 

Emma felt the first stirrings of discomfort rising within her. “Experiments?” she asked, keeping her voice light.

 

The Count was not fooled. He grinned. “That’s what I call them. It’s very important for subjects to be at full health beforehand. Controlled variables, and all that.” (This was before people knew much about the scientific method, but the Count had always been ahead of his time.)

 

“I see,” Emma said. She didn’t, but she knew what was coming anyways.

 

“So? How are you feeling?”

 

“Fine, thanks.” She saw no reason to lie. Apart from being restrained, she’d been taken care of. She’d let him have his fun, and it would give her more time to prepare for what was to come.

 

Emma was no stranger to pain. The pirates she’d lived with for years hadn’t been either, and they’d all known the risks to being captured. _You got something to live for?_ her first mate had asked her once, and she’d nodded wordlessly. _Good,_ he’d said. _You focus on that if the worst ever happens._

 

So as the Count leaned over her and began attaching the cups of his strange machine—to her temples, her limbs, her chest—she took her mind away. That was the only way to explain it. She let everything around her fade away until there was stillness, and then she allowed herself to think of Regina. Of Regina’s voice, low and clear and polished in a practiced kind of way, of Regina’s skin, of Regina’s hands cradling her cheek, of Regina’s eyes when they’d reached the end of the Fire Swamp. Regina riding, laughing and free like Emma had never seen her before. Regina angry and yet not angry at all, snapping and snarling but soft, soft. “This might hurt a bit,” said the Count from above her, and Emma filtered him out until there was only Regina’s quiet sobs of relief that Emma was alive in her ears. She felt him stroke her forehead and replaced the sensation with Regina’s forehead pressed against hers. He pressed final suction cups to her eyelids and she curled them tighter and imagined Regina rolling down the hill after her, disheveled and dusty and _happy_.

 

Then the Count switched the lever, and everything went to shit.

 

-

 

“Abuelo,” Henry says reprovingly. “That’s _three_ bad words now.”

 

“This part deserves it, trust me,” says his grandfather. “Just don’t tell your mothers.” He winks.

 

Henry grins. “I like this story,” he says. “Are there any more swears?”

 

“You’ll see,” Henry Sr. says, shaking his head, and he picks up the thread once more.

 

-

 

Emma had been prepared for pain. She had not been prepared for the Machine.

 

To be fair, nothing could have prepared her. The Machine was the Count’s own invention, after long years of study, and no one was able to resist it, not even someone who could wrap themselves up in a blanket of love as protection. This was because the Machine did not only target the body. There was no escape. It simply pulled at every part of a person until they broke.

 

Emma felt as though she screamed for years, but it must have been only seconds before the Count returned the lever to its original position. “How do you feel?” he asked her, balancing a pen against his chin.

 

Emma burst into tears.

 

“Interesting,” he said, and made a note in his book.

 

-

 

Mulan, when she had come to consciousness several days ago, had gone to retrieve Red and Zelena, relieved to find them alive despite their wounded pride. Zelena was furious, of course, but there was nothing to be done. They had failed in their mission.

 

“He’ll be so angry,” Zelena kept saying.

 

“The Prince?” Mulan asked. She and Red hadn’t been informed of who had hired them, but she’d figured only one person would want to engineer a war with a rich neighboring kingdom.

 

“No,” said Zelena. “The man with magic.”

 

At this, Mulan stood very still. “What did he look like?” she asked, slow, measured. “This man with magic?”

 

Zelena shrugged and told her, and that was how Mulan came to know that a man she’d been seeking for many years, the man who’d destroyed her first love and set her adrift, lived there in the kingdom. In the palace, in fact. And that was how she came to set off to find him.

 

(If she’d asked, it also would have been how she came to discover that it was he who’d trained Zelena, who’d taken her in and shown her the ways of magic and then cut her off just as her mother had after he’d realized she had no innate ability, who’d searched for someone more powerful while she tried again and again to prove herself. Who’d eventually found that someone in Zelena’s sister and had boasted about her sheer potential as Zelena waited and seethed and was _finally_ given the chance to prove her value by kidnapping the girl and throwing the politics of the kingdom into chaos.

 

But Mulan didn’t ask, and Zelena probably wouldn’t have told her if she had.)

 

Red came with her. They’d been through a lot, the two of them, and yet it meant more than Mulan could say for Red’s loyalty to extend so far. They left Zelena on the outcropping they’d found her.

 

“Where will you go?” Mulan asked her, and Zelena shook her head. She looked lost, aimless. Mulan imagined she’d never been bested before, although there seemed to be something more lingering under the unease in her eyes. Still, it was none of Mulan’s business, and she had a palace to reach.

 

The journey took them several days by land. It would have taken them less except that Red insisted they stop to rest. “Sleep is important for revenge,” she quipped, and Mulan glanced at her sharply, because she hadn’t said anything about revenge, not explicitly, but then Red had always been perceptive and they’d worked together long enough for her to have picked up hints, to have seen the way Mulan listened for any whisperings of men with strange powers.

 

They heard news on their travels, from merchants and travellers dressed in rags and the odd family headed toward the palace for the wedding festivities. It was said that men of Midas’s kingdom had kidnapped the soon-to-be princess and that the Prince had executed a daring rescue, defeating five at once. The two were apparently holed up in the castle, making eyes at each other and waiting impatiently to be declared husband and wife.

 

From what she’d seen of the Prince’s future bride, Mulan found this rather hard to believe.

 

The preparations for the wedding should have helped them, but the Prince’s newfound hostility toward his neighboring king had complicated things. Mulan and Red, passing by the front gates with a deliberately casual air, found over thirty men guarding the gate. Mulan sucked in a breath. It was too many for the two of them to take down quietly, and the heightened security meant sneaking in was no longer an option either.

 

Zelena probably could have come up with some trick, but Zelena wasn’t here, and neither was her brand of luck that had always seemed to keep them safe.

 

Red sensed her frustration and took her arm. “Let’s find an inn,” she said. “We can plan out a strategy tonight.”

 

They both knew there was no strategy that could get them past thirty men unnoticed, but Mulan tipped her head in acquiescence. They had time. He would not slip away from her now.

 

-

 

The Count had come to visit Emma again several times. He toyed with her, flicking the lever up as high as five or ten before lowering it down to two or three and turning on his Machine once more. Each time, she tried to take her mind away, to think only of Regina, and each time she failed. The Machine was too strong for her. She accepted this and fought against it in the same breath, because if the Machine was too strong for her then there was no hope of escape and the alternative was not an option. Not when days must have passed, when there was so little time before Regina’s marriage, if it had not already come to pass.

 

When he emerged from the shadows this time, he held something in his hand. She assumed it was some new instrument of torture, and strained to look; he caught her gaze and held it out of sight.

 

“A funny thing, love,” he said, the non sequitur instantly putting her on edge. “Do you think it’s helped you?”

 

She kept silent. He smirked and drew the object from behind his back. It was a sheet of parchment.

 

“Your princess seems to,” he told her, unfurling it. “She still hasn’t given up on you, apparently. I can’t imagine why.”

 

Emma felt her heart rise in her chest. So Regina hadn’t truly left her behind.

 

“Wouldn’t you like to hear what she has to say for herself?” he asked, and Emma was caught up in the malice of his expression. She nodded, mutely, just a jerk of her head against the strap pulling at her forehead, and his smirk widened into a grin as he read.

 

It hurt. More than the Machine did, almost, and she’d known it would but she’d needed it anyway. Regina was earnest and hopeful and hovering on the edge of affectionate and Emma cringed to hear her beautiful words marred in this man’s mouth. Regina hoped Emma would forgive her. She’d made the choice that would keep them both safe.

 

Emma didn’t even think she was angry anymore, not really. It was so hard to stay angry at Regina, harder still when the words from the letter wrapped around her brain and made her hurt more at Regina’s particular brand of selflessness. Regina was _good_ no matter how hard she’d protest at the label now, and Emma couldn’t deny that she’d probably have done the same thing Regina had back at the Fire Swamp if it had been up to her.

 

Sometimes, Emma indulged herself by imagining Regina finding her here. Regina would be unbelievably angry, Emma knew. She’d destroy the Count for what he’d done. It was a good thought, to imagine Regina appearing like some avenging angel to save her. Emma held onto it tightly when there was nothing else.

 

Of course her now-constant thoughts of Regina, newly tinged by hope, had been what the Count intended, and of course Emma was not so obtuse that she didn’t realize this. But it is very hard to steel a mind completely against hope. Against anger, yes, or against trust. But other things have a way of seeping through the cracks, and Emma was tired, and even her strength was waning, and there was no shame in taking some from the words of someone who would give it to her freely.

 

He left her in the dark afterwards. She’d expected him to skip right to the Machine, but he was playing the long game, letting her sit with Regina’s letter rattling around her mind for long enough that driving it away would be especially painful. She found she could not bring herself to care. In the dim light, she whispered Regina’s words to herself, over and over, until at last she slept.

 

-

 

It was the day of the wedding, and Emma had not come. Regina focused on pretending her disappointment did not exist and discovered this only made it stronger. She shook herself in anger. _Silly girl_.

 

The Prince was busy fortifying the castle’s defense and making last adjustments to the wedding schedule, and so she was surprised that he visited her chambers that morning. He was happier now that she’d appeared to have resigned herself to her fate, that she’d left her rooms several times to eat. He must have assumed she’d gotten over her sadness, as he’d termed it.

 

“Things are almost ready, my lady,” he said, hints of a boyish smile playing over his lips. “Every ship in the harbor is ready to accompany us on our honeymoon.”

 

Regina lost her forced smile. “Every ship but four,” she said. “The four you sent to find Em—the woman who saved me.”

 

“Yes, of course. I misspoke.”

 

Regina pursed her lips, and he let out a breath, eternally frustrated. She always felt as though she had somehow fallen short of his expectations.

 

“Will you put her out of your mind, once we are married?”

 

“Yes,” Regina said. After a beat, she added, “I’ll try.”

 

He sighed again, and left without another word.

 

-

 

Regina did not follow him to where he traveled in the palace’s turret, and so she did not hear his hushed conversation with the count in a darkened stairwell.

 

“I want her _gone_ ,” the Prince hissed. “That girl. Pirate. Whatever. I don’t ever want her to bother me or my bride ever again. Can you arrange that?”

 

“It will be as you say,” the Count said silkily.

 

“No.” The Prince shook his head. “I want her _gone_ ,” and he stretched the word into a bloom of understanding between them.

 

The Count inclined his head. “It will be as you say,” he repeated, and swept away in a whirl of his cloak.

 

-

 

The Count was smiling the next time he came to Emma, and he seemed much more talkative than he had in their previous interactions. It concerned her, though she could do nothing but listen, but keep him talking and delay the inevitable.

 

“Do you know what I’ve really been doing all this time?” he asked her. She blinked at him. “No, I suppose you wouldn’t. I’ve been draining magic.”

 

“Magic?” she asked, the words bursting out of her throat in surprise. “I don’t have any magic.”

 

He giggled, then. “Dearie, you have more magic than half the kingdom put together. The Machine wouldn’t work on you otherwise. It’s a wonder it’s lain dormant this far, really.”

 

She fought the tide of horror. “You’re wrong.”

 

“Your princess, too,” he said, eyes sharp. “Why do you think I wanted her in the castle? The force of you two together…” he whistled. Emma shifted uncomfortably, teeth clenched at the mention of Regina.

 

“Tragic, to waste so much potential,” the Count said, considering her for a second and then shrugging. “But duty is duty, and one has to make sacrifices to keep hold of one’s allies.”

 

“What do you—” Emma started, still reeling from the revelation that she had _magic_ , that this man—or wizard, whatever he was—had been sucking it from her like some unfamiliar life force, that there’d been some power trapped inside her all her life that she’d never known about and never been able to use—she thought briefly of the thing that had made the wolf crumple before her—

 

Then the Count pushed the lever to fifty, and Emma screamed.

 

This was no ordinary scream. It was the scream of true suffering, and so not even the soundproofed walls of the chamber could contain it; it rose above them and echoed through the city, leaving no one untouched. Children playing in the street froze. The guards in front of the gate shivered. Somewhere among the ramshackle houses an old woman wailed.

 

Two women, one of them draped in a red cloak, looked to the sky as they heard it. Another women, dark-haired and dark-eyed and surrounded by attendants poking at her wedding dress, nearly fell to the floor as it reached her ears. The Count heard it loud and anguished, and even he winced as the force of it washed over him.

  
The scream stopped. The Count pushed the lever back to its starting place. On the table, Emma jerked once, and then she lay completely, agonizingly still.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw for marriage after forced engagement and implied suicidal thoughts.

 

Regina’s marriage was a short affair. The Prince was impatient, clearly, and hustled the priest along to the important parts. She stood, numb. Allowed herself to lose the shred of faith lingering under her ribcage as the Prince slid a ridiculously elaborate ring onto her finger, conjured up a smile that seemed to crack at its edges as they walked out of the room. The Prince brought her to her room. “I’ll be back soon to bring you to our honeymoon ship,” he said, and she curled her fist so tight her nails made white crescents in her palm.

 

-

 

“Hold on,” Henry says at this. “This isn’t a happy story at all.”

 

“I haven’t even read the end yet, mijo.”

 

“I know, but—”

 

His grandfather shushes him. Henry is taken aback by this.

 

“Listen, little prince,” he says. “Just listen.”

 

-

 

Red and Mulan heard the scream and knew exactly what it meant. Red shook her head in disgust, but Mulan flung out an arm to stop her from turning away. “That woman,” she said. “That woman beat all of us.”

 

“And now she’s probably dead,” Red retorted.

 

“She could help us.”

 

“She’s _dead_ , Mulan.”

 

“We don’t know that.”

 

Red sighed. “What do you want to do?” she asked finally, and Mulan smiled.

 

“You have her blindfold from the ship, right? Think it still has her scent?”

 

They hurried toward the palace, faces tilted down and hidden by shadow. Mulan headed to the main gates, but Red sniffed the air and guided her past them, into a grove of gnarled trees. “Here,” she said, jerking her chin at the ground in front of one. Mulan felt in the grooves of the bark until she grinned, pushed until they both heard a click and the hidden door swung open to reveal the chamber underneath. They crept carefully toward the table, ready for an attack, but it was clear that the woman’s captors had left her for dead, for no one appeared.

 

She was pale, translucent almost, with her wrists and ankles an angry red from fighting the restraints. An odd device lay next to her, cups and wires running towards a wheel in the corner. Mulan kicked it aside with a shudder, and they gathered the woman up, settling her in a convenient wheelbarrow from the next room in the underground chamber. Then, rolling her ahead of them, they set off to find the one person they knew who could help.

 

The woman was very still under the cloth they had used to hide her. Mulan wondered if they had been too late.

 

She didn’t know exactly where Zelena was, but she could guess. They’d met when Mulan had come to ask for a miracle, had begged Zelena for something to bring Aurora back and been told it was too late and eventually ended up working with her instead. She needed another one now, and so she led Red and the motionless woman to the house at the very edge of town. Knocked three times, and then another three, until finally the door opened an inch and Zelena’s eye appeared in the crack.

 

“We need your help,” Mulan said heavily.

 

“No.”

 

“Really? That’s what years of loyalty gets?”

 

Zelena hummed angrily, low in her throat. “Fine, come in. But I’m not making any promises.”

 

Red wheeled the body into the house in front of her.

 

Zelena laughed when she saw, laughed until tears gathered in the corners of her eyes. “That better not be who I think it is,” she said, and then: “You want me to save the woman who ruined us?”

 

“It’s important,” said Mulan.

 

Zelena scoffed. “What could possibly be important enough for me to wake her up?”

 

“We—” Red started.

 

“You know what, let’s just ask her,” Zelena said. She drew a pair of bellows from the corner and used them to push air into the woman’s lungs, then placed her hand on the woman’s chest as if listening. “What do you have to live for?” she shouted into the woman’s ear. Red gave Mulan a skeptical look. Mulan shrugged.

 

Then the woman’s lips moved, voice cracking with newness. “Love,” she whispered.

 

Zelena took a step back, shock on her face quickly morphing to nonchalance. “Well then.”

 

“Love,” said Red. “You heard her.”

 

“I didn’t hear anything of the sort. She was obviously saying ‘dove,’ and I’m not bringing her back so she can see her favorite bird.”

 

“Liar,” came a low voice from behind Zelena. Mulan blinked in surprise as another woman walked out, dark eyes filled with muted anger. “You heard her same as I did.”

 

“Marian,” Zelena hissed, but the woman was having none of it.

 

“Love, Zelena. You can at least _try_.”

 

“And who do you think her love _is_ ?” Zelena snapped, fists clenched at her sides. “I can do the math. Regina’s already gotten everything, and now she—what, she gets her savior back after doing _nothing_ to deserve it—”

 

Marian just looked at her. “It shouldn’t change anything,” she said. “This woman doesn’t deserve to die because of your grudge.”

 

Zelena pursed her lips in scorn. Mulan, while sincerely impressed with the newcomer, was still not certain that the room wasn’t about to explode.

 

“When does it end?” Marian asked quietly, and Zelena didn’t answer.

 

Mulan took this moment to step in. “We need her to help get into the castle,” she said. “To destroy the man with magic.”

 

“You’re—this is all to hurt _him_? The Count?”

 

“We’re also trying to save a _life_ ,” said Mulan hotly, but Zelena’s expression had already shifted.

 

“Fine,” she said after a beat. “I’ll do it. My sister gets her happy ending after all,” and this was accompanied by a twist of her mouth and resentment flashing in her eyes as Mulan and Red understood a new piece of the puzzle.

 

Still, Zelena gathered up her materials, Marian assisting, and within minutes they had assembled a pill of sorts. “Give this to her and wait ten minutes,” said Zelena, waving a palm over it. “Someone’s sucked magic out of her. This should...the best way I can explain is it should relight the spark of it. There are easier ways, but,” her face tightened, “only people with natural ability can use those. I’ve had to learn everything myself.”

 

“Thank you,” Mulan told her.

 

“Don’t thank me yet,” she replied grimly. “She’s been down a long time.”

 

-

 

The first thing Emma was aware of was something lodged in her throat. She swallowed, painfully forcing it down, and coughed twice. She hurt all over, more than she had before, and her memory was too fuzzy to recall what had happened.

 

The second thing was that she couldn’t move. She could open her eyes, barely, but her limbs refused to cooperate; she felt as though the deep sluggishness of waking from a nap had somehow been amplified.

 

“Wh—” she tried to say, but her tongue wasn’t cooperating either.

 

“Shh,” said someone above her. It was Red, and she cursed internally. The trio must have come back to get their revenge. “Don’t try to move yet. Just listen.”

 

“Um,” she said when the two had finished explaining. “Wow. Okay. And we are...storming the castle?”

 

“Yes,” said Mulan.

 

“To find...a man with magic?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And it’s only the three of us, and I can’t move, and there are thirty guards posted at the gate.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Emma sighed. “Well, at least someone thinks highly of me.” Then she looked at them. “Do you even know my _name_?”

 

-

 

In the end, they did manage to make it inside, but not without a significant amount of swearing and knocking people unconscious, usually at the same time. Emma’s plan of distracting the guards failed once Red transformed, as it was a rather hard phenomenon to miss, and only the arrival of Zelena and Marian on their heels helped save them from capture, the remaining guards fleeing when the two newcomers produced some potion that spat flames as it arced toward the gates.

 

“You came to help?” Emma asked, confused.

 

“Figured you’d need it,” said Marian, arching an eyebrow at Mulan, who promptly blushed.

 

Emma nodded her thanks, already restless and itching to _move_. “See you on the flip side,” she said, and she stumbled her way toward Regina’s chambers, still weak and boneless as she collapsed in a loose heap on the bed.

 

-

 

After a few minutes, Regina came in from the other room, face drawn. She stared out the window, peering down at the street below; her back was very straight, and her eyes were dry. She traced the frame with a shuddering hand, took another step forward.  She felt as though she was watching herself somehow, as though her mind had disconnected from her body.

 

If she was being honest with herself—and there was no reason not to be, now—there had always been some part of her that had hoped for a last-minute rescue, that had believed no matter how hard she’d tried to push the thoughts away. She was too old for happy endings, but even the unhappy stories where villains triumphed never finished with emptiness like this.

 

She traced the band of the ring that felt too heavy on her finger, felt its chill travel up to her chest and take root there. She looked down at the ground, far below her room in its enclosed tower.

 

Then—

 

“Careful,” Emma said lightly from behind her, and she spun in astonishment.

 

“You—” and suddenly Regina was shaking, and running to Emma and straddling her and peppering her jawline with kisses, murmuring _you idiot_ in between them, and Emma was clutching at her and their hearts had never felt so free. “You came _back_.”

 

“Did you ever doubt?” Emma asked her. Regina paused, because this was Emma and Emma didn’t just _say_ things like that directly, and maybe she was a little too perceptive, had understood a little too much before she’d spoken into the heaviness of the room. They’d always seen too much and yet nothing at all when it came to each other.

 

Still, explanations were for later, for when they had time to relearn what they were together. “Idiot,” she murmured again. Her smile was an uncontrollable thing, Emma’s skin soft against hers as the few tears that had escaped dried on her cheeks.

 

“Let’s get out of here,” Emma said quietly, and Regina nodded against her collarbone. Except—

 

“I got married,” she admitted, that familiar anger curling in her stomach.

 

“Did you say _I do_?” asked Emma.

 

“Well—no.”

 

“Then you aren’t married.”

 

Regina breathed in the smell of Emma, warmth and sweat and something faintly herbal. “I didn’t want any of it,” she said, feeling strangely small. “I wouldn’t...I was done.”

 

“I know,” said Emma, and her trembling fingers came up to thread through Regina’s hair, gentle. “ _Regina_ , god, I know. You’ve been so strong.” Regina felt her heartbeat start to slow, steady and rhythmic. She brushed delicate knuckles against Emma’s neck, sat up to look at her. Emma was reclined oddly against the pillows, awkward and tense, and Regina stiffened with the certainty that something was wrong.

 

It was her focus on Emma that meant she never noticed the Prince entering the room, leaning against the door frame and watching them silently. And so when Emma added, “hasn’t she, my lord?” eyes trained on a point above Regina’s shoulder, Regina recoiled, scrambling in front of her.

 

“I’m almost glad you came back,” he replied, facing Emma carefully. “I can get rid of you myself now.”

 

“You can try.”

 

He sneered. “I didn’t get this far without knowing when someone’s injured.”

 

Emma let her hand drop to the hilt of her sword. “Want to hear what I’m going to do to you after I win?” she said, her voice a sharp contrast to the rage of her expression.

 

“Stop stalling,” said the Prince, and he lunged forward—

 

Just as Regina reached for him with the dagger she’d hidden in her room weeks ago, turned its point at the last second, and hit him soundly on the head with the pommel. He crumpled to the ground with a defeated groan.

 

“You didn’t tell me you were hurt,” Regina said, frowning at Emma.

 

“Everything hurts much less when I’m watching you knock men unconscious.”

 

“Emma.”

 

“It’s nothing, I promise.”

 

“ _Emma_.”

 

“I’ll tell you all about it once we’re out of here,” Emma promised. “Just—run away with me?”

 

Regina took her hand.

 

-

 

They caught up with the others in the main hall, all of them disheveled but wearing identical expressions of satisfaction. “You look like you had fun,” Emma said. Her fingers had not left Regina’s, and warmth sparked between them.

 

“The Count,” Mulan said in explanation. “He won’t be bothering anyone else.”

 

“You—”

 

“Took his magic away with that horrible contraption,” said Zelena airily. “Inspired idea, really.”

 

“Yes,” Mulan said, and her face was more peaceful than Regina had seen it before, the stiffness in her shoulders easing into something more natural as she glanced at Marian. “It was.”

 

They stole horses from the stables. Regina soothed them, patted their necks as Emma led them out to the courtyard. When everyone had lifted themselves into their saddles, she permitted herself one last glance at the palace.

 

“It would’ve been nice to set the place on fire,” she remarked quietly to Emma.

 

Emma laughed; Regina had somehow known she would. “I can’t say I didn’t think about it.”

 

“But?”

 

Emma gestured toward her. “You’re here,” she said simply.

  
And Regina leaned across the gap and kissed her on the cheek, and they rode into the waiting sunset.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> just the epilogue left! no cw's for this chapter.

 

It was Red who finally asked what was on everyone’s mind. They’d just changed direction after getting word from a friendly merchant ship that the Prince had set a trap in the port ahead, and Regina could sense the fatigue in the way everyone’s shoulders had drooped at the news.

 

Days on the ship had felt longer than usual, stretching out and expanding into the horizon. Emma had left her crew at a nearby port after three days, their pockets packed with silver and their minds empty of any knowledge that would help the Prince. Mulan and Red and Zelena knew their way around ships, anyway, and Marian and Regina were slowly learning. Regina had found she loved standing at the bow, clutching at the rigging and letting the wind and spray of the sea surround her. Sometimes Emma left the helm to join her, fitting in behind her and silently pressing soft lips to the muscle between her neck and shoulder. At night, they’d talked: of the gaps in their lives when they’d been separated, of regrets and even of distant dreams for the future. Everything they could have said to each other if they’d had the time.

 

“We’re always going to be running,” Red said. She looked at Emma, but spoke to all of them.

 

“Yes,” said Emma heavily.

 

“So maybe—we stop?”

 

“How would that even work?” Mulan asked. There was nothing keeping them in this land, not anymore, and being hunted by the Prince’s men had worn at all of them, kept them on edge every time they came in contact with another person or docked to resupply.

 

Zelena cleared her throat. “There’s...a way,” she said. “A portal we could open. To another world.”

 

“A world without magic,” Emma whispered, and everyone looked at her in surprise. “I’ve heard stories about it, but I never thought it was real.”

 

“It’s said that the portal can only be opened by the destruction or creation of true love,” Zelena told them. “You either need to sacrifice the thing you love most...or perform True Love’s Kiss.”

 

Everyone seemed to turn their heads at the same time. Zelena looked at Regina, then at Emma. So did Red, Mulan, and Marian. Emma and Regina, however, were studiously avoiding each other’s eyes, each apparently very interested in the deck below them.

 

Marian snorted. “Come on, you two.”

 

“True love? That’s not—we’re not—” Emma was scrambling. Regina was trying very hard not to find it endearing and failing.

 

“Emma’s right,” she said. “There’s no way.” It didn’t mean she wasn’t thinking about it though, the sparks that flickered when they kissed even now and the way they’d avoided saying a particular four-letter word to each other. Something softer than anticipation rose into her chest.

 

Zelena rolled her eyes. “Unbelievable,” she muttered, and then, louder: “We may as well try it anyway.”

 

Of course she was right. They had to try, and Regina and Emma’s weak protests were overruled, drowned out by the others’ raised eyebrows and knowing gazes.

 

“Why did we invite them again?” Emma joked when the others had left. Regina made a flimsy attempt at a laugh, the sound flat as it lingered between them.

 

“I think you’ll find that was your idea, dear,” she said, and when Emma looked at her oddly she muttered something about preparing lunch and fled to the other side of the ship.

 

As the days drew on and they prepared for the journey, Regina began to spend more time with Zelena, the close proximity driving them together despite their differences. The news that they were sisters had come as a shock until she regained fuzzy memories of a childhood friend that had disappeared with no explanation. At first, their conversations were sharp, biting, spats that left them spinning to opposite sides of the ship in anger. Zelena lorded her knowledge of magic over Regina, which was incomprehensible and exasperating at the same time. She refused to apologize for kidnapping her; she loved to needle at people; she idolized their mother, something that tore at the pit of Regina’s stomach until bitterness spilled out of her.

 

It was Marian who soothed things between them. Marian who, Regina was beginning to find, had the sort of no-nonsense attitude necessary for resolution. Marian who kept quiet about her past but laughed with Regina late at night when the waves crashed against the hull, who hummed under her breath in the morning and learned how to adjust the sails with a steady determination. Marian who had somehow crept through Regina’s defenses and become a friend.

 

Regina never asked her how she’d ended up in Zelena’s house. She dared once to ask Zelena if they’d had something in the past, when she walked in on Marian and Mulan pressed together in the corner of their cabin belowdecks, hands in places she tried very hard not to look. Zelena had laughed at her and neatly dodged the question, and Regina had reluctantly accepted the mystery. They all had secrets, after all.

 

When they’d refilled the ship’s stores at last, they set sail for the place Zelena insisted the portal had to be created. Emma and Regina were suddenly standoffish, distant; they snapped at the smallest things, managed to avoid each other during the days and ignore each other at night. Emma spent more and more time studying her maps, mumbling to herself about star positions and currents and how ridiculous the concept of magic was in the first place, how ridiculous it was that _true love_ could somehow be the only thing that would unlock their future.

 

Regina was quiet, even around Marian. Sometimes when they spoke Marian sprinkled in words that Regina knew only from her father, half-forgotten pieces of him, and the familiar sounds made Regina miss him all the more, still trapped in that dusty home with the mother she wished she could truly leave behind.

 

She was watching the sea slide past one night when someone came to sit beside her.

 

“You okay?”

 

“Couldn’t sleep,” said Regina.

 

“Yeah.” Emma let her fingers hover in the gap between them, waited. Regina allowed herself a quick glance at Emma’s face before threading their hands together.

 

“We don’t...we can stay,” Emma said quietly. “If that’s what you want.”

 

Regina resisted the urge to snatch her hand back. “Is that what you want?”

 

“I don’t _know_ , I—not when the alternative makes you go silent like this, trapped in your own head because you know it won’t even work—”

 

“What?” Regina realized suddenly that they were both standing, separated once more.

 

“There’s no way,” Emma quoted her with a laugh too careless to be believable. “You said it yourself, right? True love...there’s no such thing.”

 

Regina let out a breath, waited too long to respond. “Yes,” she said at last. “That’s what I said. Good night, Emma,” and she walked in silence to their quarters.

 

When Emma followed her several minutes later, she found Regina curled up in her bunk, facing the wall as her chest rose and fell in strangely measured intervals.

 

-

 

They stopped at one last port before they finished the journey. Regina left in the grey light of dawn, alone despite Emma’s protests. When she returned that night, her father in tow behind her after a joyous reunion, no one mentioned the absence of her mother.

 

Only Emma would see the hot tears she wept that night in the safety of their cabin, wrapped around herself and looking so, so young. Only Emma would trace a comforting hand along her back, would hover tentatively until Regina leaned into her and let herself be held, let Emma’s presence swallow up her sorrow for a time. In the morning the shoulder of Emma’s shirt was still damp and they were back to edging around each other, and Emma set her expression into blunt cheerfulness and ached with things left unsaid.

 

Regina’s father adjusted quickly to the rhythm of the ship, his mild manner fitting in easily among them. In the evenings he and Regina talked together, their voices a muted hum against the backdrop of the sea, and he told her stories, ones that were different than those she’d listened to as a child but no less captivating. He could make worlds come alive in a few sentences, real and fictional, and she was grateful for the comfort he offered, for the tiny piece of home she could keep with her as they traveled into the unknown.

 

Regina and Emma established a kind of routine as well in the nights before they arrived. They would sit beside each other in the quiet, unwilling to break the fragile peace between them by voicing their thoughts. Regina thought privately that if they’d at least had some chance of creating the portal before this, they had none now. Not when they could barely look at each other for more than a few seconds before they swallowed and glanced away, not when Emma seemed resigned to failure and everyone else grew more and more uneasy with their distance.

 

“Look,” Emma said one night, when the silence became too much. “Maybe there’s another way to do this. I could...land again, do some research. See if we have other options.”

 

“You want to run,” Regina said flatly.

 

“That’s not what I said.”

 

“It’s what you meant,” Regina retorted, the unspoken agreement between them shattering. “You think I don’t know why you left all those years ago? You can blame it on my mother, but we both know that wasn’t all. You’re a runner, Emma, and god,” she laughed without humor, “I should’ve known I wouldn’t be enough to stop that.”

 

“Don’t turn this on me,” Emma hissed. “You obviously don’t think it will work and I’m trying to _help_ , so don’t turn this into you not being enough for me when you’re _everything_ —” she stopped, clenching her fists.

 

Regina swallowed, reevaluated. She reached for one of Emma’s hands, uncurling it, tracing the lines of Emma’s palm. “I’m sorry,” she said, and let that settle before continuing. “What I said before, I—there might be a chance. I didn’t hold back because of my own...reservations, I just thought—we haven’t talked about anything, and I know you don’t put much stock in the idea of true love, and neither do I, really, it was probably made up by two idiots who wouldn’t know what a complex emotion was if it hit them in the face—”

 

So maybe she was stretching the truth about her belief or lack thereof, but she’d been doing it to herself for long enough, and it was worth it to hear Emma’s laugh lift out of her quiet but clear, the corners of her lips tugging up like she was afraid she wouldn’t be able to pull them back down. “Okay,” Emma said. “So...we’ll try?”

 

“We’ll try,” agreed Regina. “And if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t matter. We’ll find a way.”

 

“Together,” said Emma, eyes shining, and that night there was no curling up alone for either of them.

 

-

 

At last they came to the place where the barrier that separated the two worlds was weakest. Emma and Regina had avoided kissing each other on the lips as they grew closer, and the others had teased them for it, but it would have felt too much like tempting fate, like breaking some unspoken rule. Whenever they’d started toward each other Regina had mumbled something about superstitions, or Emma had sidestepped and pressed a kiss to her cheek instead, and they’d known, somehow, that this was the right thing to do. Still, the uncertainty brought a sense of pressure along with it; so much was riding on magic’s fickle understanding of what love was, on something uncontrollable that neither of them truly understood.

 

“So,” Emma said, shivering in the cool afternoon. She and Regina were standing together at the bow, the others safely tucked away toward the stern. A few shouts of encouragement had floated their way at first, but now the ship was strangely silent, hushed with expectation and something invisible that weighted the air around them.

 

“So,” Regina replied, quirking an eyebrow. It felt important that they could laugh at this, could pretend it meant less than it did. “Do you want me to go, or—”

 

“I love you,” Emma said. It came out all at once but steady, sure. Regina held her breath.

 

“I love you, too,” she said, and something _changed_ around them. She wasn’t sure who leaned in first but they were kissing and god, it was _right_ , them holding each other and moving together and the sparks between them flickering the same way they had the last time and the time before and all the way back to the first time back in the stable. Except this time the sparks were rising and forming an orb around their embrace, rainbows dancing in the waning light, and the orb grew brighter and brighter and larger until it seemed to disappear and then—

 

They were no longer on a ship.

 

Regina broke away first, stunned, and Emma met her eyes with a tentative smile. And Regina—Regina smiled wide and gentle and sweet and kissed Emma again, just because she could.

 

When they’d gathered themselves and had located the direction leading out of the woods, as well as escaping a terrifying run-in with something they would later learn was called an ATV, the seven of them traveled together until they came to a city called Boston, and it was here that they made their life. There was much to learn and explore in this new world, and, as many people do, they remained close but not always in tandem.

 

Emma and Regina spent the years together, years of adventure and learning and careful, constant love. And eventually, after months of subtle hints and then real conversations and then more of endless procedure and paperwork and not daring to hope, they adopted a baby, a beautiful, questioning child. Their everything boy.

 

And they all lived—more or less—happily ever after.

 

-

 

Henry’s grandfather finishes his story and takes a drink from the water glass sitting on the counter. “Well?”

 

“I’m feeling much better,” Henry says truthfully. He’s heard pieces of this story in whispered conversations but never the whole thing at once, unraveling slow and messy and wonderful. He wonders if he might like to tell stories like this, someday, make other people feel the way he does right now, like his mind still has to catch up because it’s stuck in another universe.

 

“I’m glad,” says his grandfather, pressing a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll see you next week.”

 

“Bye,” he says, burrowing further into the covers. And, because even with family you have to remember your manners: “Thank you for the story.”

 

He thinks it might be his favorite story of all. Someday, Mom and Ma might even tell him if it’s true.

  
He might even figure it out for himself.

**Author's Note:**

> one more thank you to mari, without whom this would probably never have been finished, and to everyone else who helped me through it. i love you all <3


End file.
